Law on multicultural families may expand to include North Korean defectors, refugees

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By Jung Da-min

A law on support for multicultural families is expected to go through revisions including changing the term “multicultural” to “immigrant” and expanding the scope of its definition to include North Korean defectors as well as refugees.

Rep. In Jae-keun of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) recently proposed a revision to the Multicultural Families Support Act, together with 11 other DPK lawmakers, aimed at an overall change of the law, according to the National Assembly, Monday.

Under the current act, the term “multicultural family” indicates a family comprised of a “marriage immigrant” and a spouse with Korean nationality.

The bill reflects a growing call to change the term with many people agreeing that the meaning has been distorted to be used as a discriminatory term to specifically refer to migrant family members from Southeast Asian countries with less economic development than Korea.

It also aims to help North Korean defectors, refugees and naturalized citizens to get more institutional help from the government by including them under the category, as they have been unable to get government support given to multicultural family members under the existing law while they needed similar institutional help to settle here.

Children of North Korean defectors or with parents who are refugees have been excluded from various support measures provided to children of multicultural families ― measures aimed at assisting those eligible in their adaptation to Korean society ― so the proposed revision aims to allow those currently excluded to receive necessary institutional support.

“Korean society is becoming more diverse racially, and I thought the term should meet the changes in the times and the target of the support should be more comprehensive,” In said.

The revision will increase the government budget for the support programs, but In said supporting the underprivileged in society should not be a matter of cost, although she added that lawmakers would closely review benefits to prevent overlaps from being provided to the same person.

According to government data, there are about 1.06 million members of multicultural families, while there are about 3,300 refugees and 33,700 North Korean refugees.

“The revision bill was referred to the National Assembly Gender Equality and Family Committee and is waiting to be put to a vote in the upcoming plenary session,” In said.

An official with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said that although the ministry widely agrees on the need for such revisions to provide support for those who had been in need but excluded under the current law, further discussions are needed among relevant bodies, including the unification, justice and foreign ministries.