Multicultural families to be better served
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Cho Yoon-sun, Gender Equality and Family Minister
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The president was briefed Friday on tailor-made services to be provided for multiracial families.
In its report to President Park Geun-hye, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family disclosed plans to add 1,400 assistants to help multicultural children around the age of entering elementary school.
Their mission is to help the children academically and assist them to make an easy adjustment prior to and after they enter school.
In addition, pre-marriage education services for foreign brides will be strengthened even before they arrive in Korea, while the monitoring of marriage brokers will be tightened in order to identify fraudsters.
Minister Cho Yoon-sun said the ministry will provide tailor-made services for marriage migrants, as well as their families over their entire lifespan.
Cho said pre-marriage education services will be strengthened to cultivate a sound marriage culture.
Currently, the government provides educational services for prospective marriage migrants in three countries, three cities in Vietnam, the Philippines and Mongolia.
The gender equality ministry plans to add such pre-marriage education services in Cambodia and Uzbekistan from this year as marriage migrants from these countries have increased.
It also plans to strengthen qualifications for international marriage brokers as numerous irregularities have been reported with an increase of brokers. Marriage fraud is one of the leading causes of broken families.
Some migrant women also suffer domestic violence and other problems, sometimes resulting in divorce, caused by their and their spouse’s poor understanding of each other’s culture.
Once in Korea, marriage migrants will also receive diverse support services from their local governments and multicultural centers in their neighborhoods.
Cho said the gender equality ministry will set up 12 more multi-cultural centers by July to provide better accessibility to foreign brides and meet their demands for policy support.
She also vowed to provide more Korean language services for children from multicultural families, to help them better adjust to the school environment.
From February, childcare workers will visit pre-schoolers to help with their education.
The gender equality ministry also plans to beef up a campaign for Korean nationals to build their awareness of cultural diversity.
The general public, and specifically childcare center workers, police and soldiers will take part in the awareness building program.
This comes after several reports have found more than 30 percent of marriage migrants experienced discrimination based on culture after they arrived in Korea.
The nation has seen a rapid growth of marriage migrants over past years. Some 170,000 foreign brides were in Korea in 2009. The number increased to 220,000 in 2012.
The Park government has designated multiculturalism as one of its priorities.
Rep. Jasmine Lee, a naturalized Filipina, has been actively helping her on multicultural issues.
Korea has seen a large influx of foreigners, especially from Southeast Asia, take up a significant portion of its population. The latest estimate has foreign residents at around 1.4 million.
Experts say that the trend will continue with the ratio going up, considering a prevalent low birthrate will reduce the population of Koreans, leaving a big hole in manpower that will inevitably be filled by foreigners.