Racism in South Korea

Scholars believe Korean’s strong national identity comes from a long tradition of “thousand years of ‘pure’ ancestral bloodlines, common language, customs, and history”[9] and was strengthened during and after the Japanese colonialism in the 20th century. The Japanese’s attempts to erase Korean language, culture and history had constructed ethnocentrism and ethno-nationalism as a method for Koreans to reclaim and maintain their sovereignty.

The Asian financial crisis in 1997 is one of the events that shaped Korean’s dominant attitude towards immigrants and foreigners. In the 1997 crisis, the IMF forced South Korea to take a bailout and the adverse effect it had on Korean’s economy caused the closings of financial institutions, losing jobs for 5% of workers and decreased earnings for the majority of the population.[10]

Only 40% of mixed-race elementary and middle school students, or students born out of international marriages are considered Koreans by their classmates. Almost 50% of students said they have difficulties maintaining relationships with students who do not share the same nationality background. The reason given by Korean students is because of their classmates' different skin colors (24.2%), fear of being outcast by other Korean students (16.8%), and feeling of embarrassment if being friends with mixed-race children (15.5%)[11]

Korean children also show a tendency to discriminate against Africans and people of African descent. In a 2015 research by Education Research International, Korean children show negative responses to darker-skin characters in picture book illustrations. This attitude of children is seen as a reflection of their parent's anti-blackness prejudice towards black people and white-dominant surroundings.[12]

In a more academic setting, studies show that Korean college students exhibit discrimination towards foreign professors by calling them by their first names and not showing the same amount of respect towards them[13] as students traditionally show towards their Korean professors. Teaching is highly respected and well-regarded in Korean culture, and this difference in treatment is noticed by many university foreign professors.

Recent legislation—in particular, the Foreign Workers' Employment Act (2004) and Support for Multicultural Families (2008)—have improved the situation of immigrants, more efficiently protecting their human and labor rights.[1] In 2011, the South Korean military abandoned a regulation barring mixed-race men from enlisting, and changed the oath of enlistment to not reference racial purity (minjok) to citizenship.[8] Similarly, related concepts have been withdrawn from school curricula.[8] This has been accredited in part to international pressure—in particular, concern from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which stated persistent ethnic-centric thinking in South Korea "might be an obstacle to the realization of equal treatment and respect for foreigners and people belonging to different races and cultures".[8]

As of January 2018, South Korea was still lacking an anti-discrimination law, which was recommended by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2015. The law has been reportedly stalled due to "lack of public consensus".[3] As a result, it is common for people to be denied service at business establishments or in taxis because of their ethnicity.[14][15][16][17]

In July 2018, a mass protest against Yemen refugees who had arrived at Jeju Island caused outrage in South Korea.[18][19][20]

According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%).[21] Legislations to protect against discrimination has been brought up in 2007, 2010 and 2012.[10] but the bills faced objections chiefly by conservative Protestants. Another attempt has been made in 2020 by a minor liberal Justice Party to “ban all kinds of discrimination based on gender, disability, age, language, country of origin, sexual orientation, physical condition, academic background and any other reason.” [22]

During the COVID-19 crisis, 1.4 million foreigners living in South Korea are excluded from the government's subsidy plan, which includes relief funds of up to 1 million won to Korean households. Although all people are susceptible to the virus, only foreigners who are married to Korean citizens are eligible for the money because of their "strong ties to the country".[25]

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has made schools in South Korea go fully online but the immigrant and refugee children have not received proper education opportunities due to the lack of appropriate online curriculum for them.[26]