An advocacy group for migrant women in Korea has joined the movement against President-elect Yoon Suk-Yeol’s bid to shut down the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
The Women Migrants Human Rights Center of Korea released a statement on March 30, demanding that the incoming government repeal the plan. The group advocates for the rights of migrant women in the country, who are estimated to number almost 910,000 as of 2020 ― 45 percent of the country’s residents of foreign nationality.
The group said that the ministry has been as a control tower for multicultural family support centers across the country that are dedicated to supporting migrant women’s human rights and livelihoods. Instead of shutting the ministry down, the Yoon administration must expand and strengthen related policies to support migrant women more extensively and effectively, the group argued.
The group said that multicultural family support centers, with almost 220 branches established nationwide as of 2019, have been establishing the foundations for migrant women to integrate smoothly into Korean communities. Over the past two decades, an increasing number of migrant women have been settling in the country by getting married to Korean nationals.
“Through the centers, migrant women have been supported to live in this unfamiliar land, met other fellow migrant women and overcome various difficulties,” the group said. “The centers also hires the highest number of migrant women in the country. Whenever there have been reports of migrant women being treated unfairly in workplaces, the centers have fought for their rights. The centers have defended migrant women in regards to both gender equality as well as multicultural aspects.”
Migrant women still face discrimination in Korea, the group said, which was clearly proven by how they have been excluded from various government support initiatives during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including government subsidies.
“We are living in a time when the country will only see a growing number of migrants,” the group said. “The incoming government must roll out policies that treat migrant women in terms of not just immigration principles but also gender equality.”
The ministry has also been introducing policies to protect migrant women from domestic violence, the group said. The ministry has been behind the introduction of shelters nationwide, numbering 28 as of this month, for migrant women fleeing from repeated cases of violence inflicted by their husbands. It has also opened nine consulting agencies dedicated to assisting victims of domestic abuse, with the first such agency introduced in 2019.
Panelists participate in a discussion hosted jointly by the Korean Association of Women's Studies and Korea Women's Association United on March 30 at the headquarters of the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in downtown Seoul. / Yonhap
“While the country introduced the special act against sexual violence in 1994 and the special act against domestic violence in 1997, its support of migrant women was far overdue,” the group said.
The government’s first notable initiative was introducing a law in 2004 providing legal support for shelters for migrant women, followed by broadening the same law in 2008. “Without the ministry, those pro-migrant women policies wouldn’t have been possible.”
Other civic groups for women have been attempting to persuade the presidential transition committee to come up with alternatives instead of the permanent shutdown of the ministry. Korean National Council of Women President Huh Myung met the committee’s chairman, Ahn Cheol-soo, on March 30 and discussed gender equality and women being able to both raise children and stay in the workforce.
The Korea Women’s Association United, Korea YWCA and the Korean League of Women Voters also issued a joint statement on Wednesday, demanding that the Yoon administration introduce a stronger government ministry than before, which is still dedicated to protecting gender equality.
The day also saw a discussion hosted jointly by the Korean Association of Women’s Studies and Korea Women’s Association United, during which members of the groups criticized Yoon’s pledge to shut down the ministry. They said the plan was merely a byproduct of the main opposition People Power Party’s presidential election strategy ― which divided the country’s voters along gender lines ― and didn’t have any logical or reasonable grounds to support its efficacy.
“If they shut down the ministry and allocate its core functions to different ministries like the justice ministry or other authorities handling welfare or finance, it’ll be like cutting off the head and leaving only the arms and legs,” said a researcher from Seoul National University’s Institute for Gender Research who joined the discussion. “The plan to split the ministry’s functions into jobs for different ministries only caters to administrators’ conveniences. It doesn’t take into account the actual beneficiaries of the policies regarding gender equality.”
Other participants said that if the ministry were closed down, the top government authority responsible for family, women and gender equality policies will remain in a vacuum, causing the entire administrative network to fall apart. “It will result in it being impossible to normalize operation of various government programs to prevent violence against women and support survivors of such violence,” one of the participants said.
