hankyoreh

By Kim Kyung-wook, staff reporter

“You crazy people!”

A look of hatred was clearly visible from the glance of the man in his 50s. The same look could be seen on the other two men, who seemed to be his friends. Judith Alegre Hernandez, 42, and her husband were walking through a park with their two children in Gwangju, Gyeonggi province.

Mrs. Hernandez asked clearly in Korean, “Did we do something wrong?” The men replied “Go back to your country! Why do you live in someone else‘s country and use up public money?” and insulted the family again. The hands of the two high-school children, who were holding their mother’s, began trembling.

The married couple is from the Philippines and Bangladesh, respectively. Mrs. Hernandez initially came to Korea as an English instructor and now works as a translator. Her husband works in a company that delivers ingredients to Indian restaurants. They have lived in Korea for 20 years, but cannot escape from fear and anxiety. Mrs. Hernandez said, “Every time I have to deal with these kinds of insulting incidents, I get furious.”

For the immigrants, verbal insults are a daily occurrence. They are discriminated against because of their different appearances and skin color. When they ask the price of products at a shop, the clerks cut them off immediately by replying, “It’s expensive.” Even parking is difficult. The manager comes up to them doubtfully and asks for the “real” owner and asks to their identity card. Mrs. Hernandez remarked bitterly, “Koreans think that we have no money to buy things and that we steal cars”.

Recently, a racist placard was posted on a street in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province. It read “We announce the following statement to migrant workers: if the law does not punish you, we will. Since Bangladesh has the world’s highest illiteracy rate anyway, we will not translate the statement. Those who know Korean, read the statement and spread the word to others.” This shows how racial discrimination and xenophobia are more serious issues in South Korea now that there are many more foreign residents than in the past.

According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, the number of foreigners in Korea increased from 680,000 in 2003 to 1 million in 2007, and 1.42 million last February. Last year, the number of foreigners that naturalized in Korea exceeded 123,500. The immigrants often suffer verbal insults and discriminatory remarks. In 2011, the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea conducted a survey into discrimination against foreign workers. Out of 931 migrant workers, 78.2% have been verbally insulted and 43.9% have directly heard remarks of cultural discrimination.

Legislation that explicitly punishes verbal insults related to racial discrimination has not been put forward yet. Although the current law allows charges to be pressed for defamation, strict legal standards make the reinforcement ineffective. The only successful case of prosecution for discriminatory remarks was that of Banajit Hussain in 2009. Hussain, a research professor at Sungkonghoe University, was insulted by a Korean man in his 30s who repeatedly shouted “You dirty son of a bitch! You Arab! Arab!” The man was fined 1 million won (about $900). The United States and the European Union have laws that require individual states to punish hate crimes that target victims in a certain racial or social group.

The comprehensive anti-discrimination law could be the initial step to improve conditions for immigrants in South Korea. Oh Chang-ik, Secretary General of Citizen’s Solidarity for Human Rights, stated that “The enactment of the anti-discrimination bill will allow the government to regulate and punish inhumane acts, which will significantly deter further cases of discrimination.”

In order to more actively prevent racial discrimination more actively, it was determined that supplementary measures were mandatory. Hong Sung Soo, professor at Sookmyung Women’s University, explained that “The current anti-discrimination bill only prohibits discriminatory acts on the basis of gender, academic background, race and religion. But it does not include specific regulations for punishing verbal insults and defamatory remarks. It is necessary for the legislation to explicitly punish verbal insults related to any forms of racial discrimination.”

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