By Kim Se-jeong
Since the late 1990s, Korea has seen a growing number of immigrant spouses, especially wives. As the number increased and such people needed help to adapt themselves to living here, the government introduced support programs for them in 2006.
After ten years, experts now say the policy should evolve according to social changes, shifting from unilateral support to measures to accept and develop diversity.
The initial focus a decade ago was helping immigrants settle into a new environment, as without any state support, they struggled because of the language barrier, cultural differences and abusive spouses. Support programs often included lectures on how to make kimchi or how to wear hanbok, traditional Korean clothes.
In 2008, the law on supporting multiracial families was set up, under which Multicultural Family Support Centers were established across the country.
As the number of children from such families grew, many of them had difficulty in catching up with school life due to language problems and financial difficulties, and so government policy shifted to assisting these children.
However, these two policies had problems, experts say.
“When you look at government policies, it seems like charity work,” said Kim Joon-sik, chairman of Asian Friends, an NGO.
“The government came up with programs that fed these women and families and bragged about it. The future policy should break away from this; the government should stop thinking that these immigrants are not in need all the time.”
Kim and other experts say what should come next is changing Korean’s prejudice about interracial families and educating them to understand cultural diversity and accept differences.
“Korea has been a homogeneous country. For a long time, Americans and Europeans were the only foreigners they knew. Recently, they began to include Asians, but we have the prejudicial view that they are poor and in need of help,” Kim said.
Prof. Cho Young-dal from Seoul National University said that educating the public about cultural diversity is important. “Korea needs to improve on this point. People should be able to recognize others as equally important as themselves,” he said in a forum held in Seoul, Wednesday, to assess the policy on multicultural families.
“Now the country should give multicultural families chances to create a new culture in Korea and participate in social affairs actively,” Cho said.
Prof. Yang Ki-ho from Sungkonghoe University in Seoul said the government should think about ways to connect immigrants with local communities.
“Policies should engage the local community. Interaction with the local community will improve the level of understanding between the two, and that will make Korea a better place for them to live in,” Yang said.
Kwon Yong-hyun, vice gender equality minister, said that the country should think about whether to keep using the term “multiculturalism,” because the term itself differentiates interracial families from native Koreans. “We should be able to accept differences as a more mature society,” he said.
The number of foreign residents in Korea exceeded 1.7 million early this year, including both short-term and long-term stays.
Among them, 300,000 are marriage immigrants. They are mostly women, from China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.