Human Rights Commission: "Excluding Foreign Residents from Disaster Emergency Relief Fund Violates Equality Rights"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has determined that excluding foreign residents from local governments' emergency disaster relief fund policies constitutes a violation of the right to equality.

According to the Human Rights Commission on the 11th, foreign residents were not included in the emergency disaster relief fund recipients of City A and Province B, which were urgently established due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

In response, immigrants themselves and migrant rights organizations, including foreign nationals of Korean descent who came to City A in 2009 and have been residing there for 12 years, as well as marriage migrant women raising children alone in Province B, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission last April, stating that "local governments excluding foreign residents living in the area from the emergency disaster relief fund policy is discriminatory and a human rights violation."

City A stated, "Due to limited resources, we are supporting households with income below 100% of the median income, and it is difficult to accurately identify the household composition and income of foreigners, so they were not included in the support target." It added, "Some foreigners such as marriage immigrants and recognized refugees are included to minimize discrimination against foreigners, and we are doing our best to guarantee the dignity and value of registered foreigners as human beings through other support such as emergency welfare goods." Province B also stated, "While deciding to provide disaster basic income to all residents, foreigners who cannot be identified through the resident registration electronic system were inevitably excluded to urgently provide support in the disaster situation caused by COVID-19, but we have prepared a plan to provide disaster basic income to marriage immigrants and permanent residents from a humanitarian perspective."

The Human Rights Commission judged, "Based on decisions by the UN and the international community to protect vulnerable groups in the COVID-19 disaster situation, City A and Province B treating foreign residents registered as residents differently in the emergency disaster relief fund policy is discrimination without reasonable grounds." It also determined that "this violates Article 11 of the Constitution, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and corresponds to discriminatory acts infringing on the right to equality under Article 2, Clause 3 of the National Human Rights Commission Act."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.