South Korea joined the UNHCR Refugee Convention in 1992 and became the first Asian country with a refugee law system in 2013. Although this sounded like a big moral feat in theory, the recent controversy over Yemeni refugees entering the nation through Jeju Island shows how Korea still has a long way to go.
Turmoil revolving around refugee entrance was not a social issue for the past 2 decades. This is simply because there weren’t many asylum-seekers that wanted shelter in Korea. 2000 people registered for refugee status in fifteen years since Korea took part in the UNHCR Refugee Convention; considering how the United States had approximately 280,000 asylum-seekers in the year 2007 alone, South Korea’s 2000 seems to be far from significant. This majorly derives from the fact that conflict zones are located in the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa, making it less than practical to reach Korea from the perspective of the asylum-seekers.
Despite the fact that South Korea experienced a very minute influx of asylum-seekers, the Korean response was borderline inhumane. Out of the 2000 applicants, less than 100 people were given refugee status. The construction of a refugee rights center in Paju (a South Korean city) was canceled due to severe public backlash. Even when the Ministry of Justice relocated the center to Yeongjong-do (a South Korean island), constant criticism on the plan forced the Ministry to reduce funding on the center. The refugee center was erected next to sewage treatment plants and helicopter landing pads. Government funding funneled into unnecessary buildings and advertisements rather than actually providing social integration for the desperate foreigners. Knowing that refugee status is a last resort for the asylum-seekers, Korea actively chose to kick them out or provide them with inadequate support. Considering this history, it is no surprise how Korea reacts to Yemeni asylum-seekers that entered the country.
From now this post will focus on doing three things: 1) Get the facts straight about the influx of Yemeni asylum-seekers in Korea 2) Discuss arguments against refugee acceptance and refute them 3) Argue why refugee acceptance must be bolstered and suggest future policies to facilitate this.
What happened?
A Zaidi Shia rebel group called the Houthi movement initiated a revolution against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the corrupt dictator of Yemen. August 18th, 2014, the Houthis initiated a revolution against the government’s decision to increase oil prices and eventually gained control over Sana’a (Yemen’s capital) on the 21st of September. The revolution soon turned into a civil war with many participants like the Houthis, government forces under president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Saudi-Arabia led military coalition, South Yemen separatists, and terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
At first, the Houthis had an upper hand, even temporarily occupying Aden, where President Hadi’s government was located in. This dynamic changed as Saudi Arabia entered the picture. For Saudi Arabia, Yemen functioned as an important buffer state against Shia Muslim states in the Middle East. Afraid of a Shia pro-Iran nation being erected right across their border, Saudi Arabia has shown constant military engagement to eliminate Houthi influence in Yemen.
This creates multiple life-threatening events for the residents of Yemen. First of all, as the West constantly provides military support for Saudi Arabia as a form of proxy warfare, Yemenis are subject to more air strikes and carpet bombs. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has shown their attacks to be inhumane, through examples of carpet bombing over cities and bombing funerals, weddings, and even children. Although the stakeholders in the warfare are a relative minority of the population, Yemeni people that do not side with any particular group are suffering daily air strikes and drone attacks. Surrounded by adversaries or nations that do not accept refugees, Yemeni citizens have had no choice to either risk their life and religious identity by fleeing into Saudi Arabia or looking for refuge in far-away nations.
This is where South Korea comes into the picture. A lot of Yemeni asylum-seekers have moved to Malaysia that granted them 90 days of visa-less stay and an access to their necessary lifestyles (including, but not limited to, prayer rooms or Halal food). However, Malaysia is not part of the UNHCR Refugee Convention and therefore does not permit long-term residence or employment. Recent European sentiment was far from welcoming, so Europe was not an option. Other East Asian countries often lacked refugee laws or assimilation programs. Thus, South Korea seems to be the best option as they have a refugee law, provides a month of visa-less stay that can be extended to three years during a process of administrative litigation.
As the news started to spread through social media, fake news started to spread as well. For instance, captioned photos of an Al Jazeera interview with the Yemeni asylum-seekers went viral.
These photos have claimed that the asylum-seekers said that “they would much rather go back to Yemen than stay confined in an island like this (Jeju)” or sardonically criticized the asylum-seekers that were on their smartphones. Such photos obviously invoked adversarial responses from the people, arguing that the asylum-seekers should go back to Yemen if they don’t like being in Korea so much.
However, the truth is far from what is shown on these pictures. Adel Alrobeya (above) in fact said that he is very thankful of the protection he is getting in Jeju, and would go back to Yemen “[i]f we have peace in Yemen strait up.” He also explained in an interview with Jeju Today that he was dumbfounded by how fake news has made it seem ungrateful.
Regarding the smartphones, it is beyond absurd to think that because the asylum-seekers are on their phones, they are not really in need of help. Mobile phones are more than crucial to these refugees. GPS and map applications allow them to guide themselves to safe locations. Facebook groups and other social media give them real-time notifications of obstacles and disasters. As Kurzgesagt puts it, “[t]his only proves that these people are like us: if you had to make a dangerous journey, would you leave your phone behind?”
As fake news and misconceptions unreasonably sway the public, it is more than important to notice the actual dire situations Yemeni refugees must face and the help that they must get to sustain their lives.
Why are people against the asylum-seekers?
Logical arguments against asylum-seekers in Korea focus on the fact that Korea is not responsible for the status quo. They argue that unlike ex-Imperialist Western powers that have left seeds of conflict behind, Korea stepped up to its current economic status without harming other nations, and therefore does not bear the responsibility to take in refugees.
Furthermore, these people claim that South Korea already has a big burden to take in and assimilate North Korean defectors, and therefore is not in a practical situation to accept refugees.
However, the majority of dissent roots from emotional responses. Whether they are based on fake news (like the case explained above) or racism, a lot of Koreans believe that there is a clear national security threat in letting refugees in. No matter how sad it may be, it is true that South Korea is a highly ethnically homogenous country, and there are elements of Islamophobia, especially in the older generations of Korea.
Some even go to claim that the people in Yemen are not suffering at all; they argue that the reason these refugees are predominantly young males means that they are lying their way in to get a job.
Then why should these people still be given refugee status?
Firstly, the responsibility for taking in refugees does not lie on simple reparation. Of course, Western nations that have been direct causes of increasing warfare and refugees may bear more responsibility than others. However, what we should all realize is that the lives and well-being of humanity must be valued over the privileges as the affluent. Especially considering how South Korea has a developed economy that has the capabilities of taking in refugees, we do bear the responsibility to help those who need help instead of denying them. As a democracy we vow to protect the weak; there is no reason that “the weak” should be defined under an extremely nativist, ethnocentrist subtext.
Secondly, arguing that the asylum-seekers are lying job-seekers just because there are a lot of young men entering the country is not only an insulting claim, but an ignorant one as well. The reason why refugees, especially in the early stages of asylum-seeking, are male is because families often have to face more danger when moving together. It starts with how families often send their young male family members away, to save that lives at least. This is just like what happened during the Korean war, where families in the North that could not afford to come down South altogether would send their young male members alone. Of course, the ideal situation would be to further protect female members of the society and grant them safety. However, that does not give leeway for dissenters to simply assume that these people are aiming for strategic economic gain.
Finally, increasing rates of crime and terrorism are simply fake news based on horrid racism. There are articles that spew statistics that claim refugees increase crime rates. Some say that sexual assaults in Sweden rank as first in the world after the number of rape cases rose by 1400% due to refugees, others (like President Donald Trump) say that Germany has massive increases in crime rates after they started to take in immigrants. There are statistics that strongly argue against refugees every day. But the truth of the matter is, a huge chunk of this is fake news. Sweden is a country that doesn’t even profile their statistics based on race. Their statistic on rape at the national level of police-recorded cases was seen to be high, in fact, ranking first. However, not only is this data excluding 63 countries out of member states, but it also denotes data from 2012, three years before Sweden took in 110,000 refugees. (I am not condoning the high sexual assault rate of Sweden in this argument.) As President Trump argues that refugees double crime rates in Germany, it is shown that Germany has a record low crime rate since 1992. There is close-to-no practical evidence that proves the causation or correlation between increasing refugees and crime rates. Arguing that refugees have a much higher chance of committing crimes is simply blatant racism; the same logic could be used to extradite any group from our societies.
My argument is not justifying that all asylum-seekers should be given refugee status. However, it is clearly visible that South Korea a) is not willing to provide refugee status to the absolute majority of asylum-seekers (South Korea’s acceptance of non-North Korean refugees range around 1.2%) b) does not want to, and is not planning to build an intricate vetting system for refugees. South Korea’s system focuses on kicking people out, not checking if they can stay. We should change to be a nation that we can all be proud of, a nation that lends a helping hand to the ones that desperately need one.
Y.C.Kim
