By Kim Bo-eun
Foreigners commit one in 10 murders, a rise in the number of serious crimes committed by non-Koreans, according to a report Wednesday.
In a recent case last month, a Korean-Chinese man kidnapped, raped and murdered a woman then chopped the victim’s body into 280 pieces, in Suwon. This incident horrified the nation and even led to incidents of xenophobia.
The number of foreign residents here rose to 1.39 million last year from 1.06 million in 2007.
There are several factors behind the growing numbers of foreign residents. One is the shortage of labor for dirty, difficult and dangers (3D) jobs that has lead to more people from developing nations in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East, coming here to find work.
Numbers have also risen due to increased inter-racial marriages.
The percentage of serious crimes overall, such as murder, rape, arson and theft, committed by foreigners is 31 percent, with the figure for convicted Koreans at 21 percent. Out of the total number of murder cases in 2011, 1,298, foreigners accounted for 103 cases, or 8 percent.
The multi-cultural, multi-racial communities in which the immigrants live together tend to be exclusive in nature, becoming hideouts for illegal immigrants and criminals.
Guro-gu, Southwestern Seoul, an area heavily populated by foreigners, has been the number one district for crime from 2008 to 2010. Its yearly average is 782 cases, with an average of 2.14 daily cases in the district.
“We are contemplating measures to strengthen a crackdown on areas in which foreign residents are concentrated, such as the Itaewon or Guro,” said a police official.
Experts also stressed that preventative measures need to be taken.