"Disaster Emergency Relief Fund Excluding Foreigners" Violates Equality Rights

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] Should foreign residents be excluded from the COVID-19 disaster emergency relief fund policy? The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has ruled this as a violation of the right to equality.

On the 11th, the NHRCK recommended that Park Won-soon, Mayor of Seoul, and Lee Jae-myung, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, improve related policies to ensure that foreign residents are not excluded from the disaster emergency relief fund policy. According to the NHRCK, in March of this year, Seoul and Gyeonggi Province each established COVID-19 related disaster relief fund policies called 'Disaster Emergency Living Expenses' and 'Disaster Basic Income,' respectively, but foreign residents were excluded from the payment targets at the time of announcement.

Migrants themselves and migrant rights organizations, including foreign nationals of Korean descent who migrated to Seoul in 2009 and have been residing there for 12 years, as well as marriage migrant women raising children alone in B-do, filed a complaint with the NHRCK in April, stating that "local governments excluding foreign residents living in the region from the disaster emergency relief fund policy is discriminatory and a human rights violation."

In response, the Seoul city government stated, "Due to limited resources, support is provided to households with income below 100% of the median income, and it is difficult to accurately ascertain the household composition and income of foreigners, so they were not included in the support targets." They added, "Some foreigners such as marriage immigrants and recognized refugees were 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."

Gyeonggi Province also stated, "While deciding to provide disaster basic income to all residents, foreigners were inevitably excluded because it was impossible to grasp the overall status from the resident registration system in order to urgently provide support during the COVID-19 disaster situation. However, from a humanitarian perspective, a plan was made to provide disaster basic income to marriage immigrants and permanent residents."

The NHRCK judged, "Based on decisions by the UN and the international community to protect vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 disaster situation, the different treatment of foreign residents registered as residents by City A and Province B in the disaster emergency relief fund policy is discrimination without reasonable grounds." Furthermore, it ruled 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."

Regarding the NHRCK decision, over 100 migrant human rights organizations including the Migrant Joint Action issued a statement saying, "Besides the complainants, unregistered migrants and other migrants marginalized from domestic social security systems are still suffering in the COVID-19 disaster situation," and urged, "Local governments and the central government should step up to protect the human rights of foreigners in Korea and work to end racial discrimination and hatred."

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