By Lee Suh-yoon
A 34-year-old Ukrainian woman was sentenced to 14 months in jail for helping other foreigners draft fake refugee applications, Tuesday.
The Incheon District Court said the woman “repeatedly disrupted immigration processes” by writing false refugee applications for 57 foreign clients who arrived in Korea on temporary B-1 or E-9 visas.
According to court documents, the woman cooked up clients' stories telling of prosecution in their home countries, including kidnapping, rape and unfair treatment by law enforcement, between March 2017 and June 2018. She was paid 200,000 won per application by a broker company that linked her with the foreign clients.
“Such mass channeling of fake refugees can prevent real refugees from getting necessary help and foster negative public sentiment about all refugees,” presiding judge Jung Won-suk said.
The court did not disclose how many of the 57 were actually recognized as refugees or given humanitarian stay permits.
Korea is signatory to the U.N. Refugee Convention, allowing refugees to work and access healthcare, education and basic welfare benefits.
Since it started reviewing refugee applications in 1994, however, the country has only accepted around 4 percent of total applicants, well below the OECD average of 25 percent. Temporary one-year humanitarian stay permits, which allow asylum seekers to work but exclude them from social welfare, are more commonly issued.