Racism in South Korea comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are related to each other, are held by various people and groups in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and actions (including violence) at various times in the

history of South Korea The history of South Korea formally begins with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. Noting that, South Korea and North Korea are entirely different countries, despite still being the same people and on the same peninsula. Backgroun ...

against racial or ethnic groups. It has been recognized as a widespread social problem in the country. South Korea lacks an

anti-discrimination law Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes. Anti-discrimination laws ...

, which was recommended by the

UN Human Rights Committee The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established by a 1966 human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per y ...

in 2015. The law has been reported stalled due to "lack of public consensus". An increase in

immigration to South Korea Immigration to South Korea () is low due to restrictive immigration policies resulting from strong opposition to immigrants from the general Korean public. However, in recent years the influx of immigrants into South Korea has been rising rapidly ...

since the 2000s catalyzed more overt expressions of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, as well as criticism of those expressions. Newspapers have frequently reported on and criticized discrimination against immigrants, in forms such as being paid lower than the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

, having their wages withheld, unsafe work conditions,

physical abuse Physical abuse is any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or wo ...

, or general denigration. In the 2017–2020

World Values Survey The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and what social and political impact they have. Since 1981 a worldwide network of social scientists have conducted r ...

, of the 1245 South Koreans surveyed, 15.2% reported that they would not want someone of a different race as a neighbor. This represents a sharp decrease from the 2010-2014 World Values Survey, where of 1200 South Koreans surveyed, 34.1% mentioned that they would not want someone of a different race as a neighbor. In the 2010–2014 survey, 44.2% reported they would not want "immigrants/foreign workers" as neighbors. By the 2017–2020 report, this figure was at 22.0%. According to a report of the

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third -generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...

, undocumented migrant children are left without many of the rights enjoyed by their South Korean counterparts. The process used to determine refugees status is designed "not to protect refugees but to keep them out. Migrant workers are only allowed to change their job with their old employer's permission. Migrant workers who work in agricultural sector, small businesses and domestic services are the most vulnerable to discrimination because of the temporary nature of their work.

History

Scholars believe Korean's strong national identity comes from a long tradition of "thousand years of ‘pure’ ancestral bloodlines, common language, customs, and history" and was strengthened during and after the Japanese colonialism in the 20th century. The Japanese's attempts to erase Korean language, culture and history had constructed ethnocentrism and ethno-nationalism as a method for Koreans to reclaim and maintain their sovereignty. According to

Katharine Moon Katharine H. S. Moon is an American academic. Moon is Professor in the Department of Political science, Political Science at Wellesley College. She is also the inaugural holder of the SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies and senior fellow at ...

, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 is one of the events that shaped Korean's dominant attitude towards immigrants and foreigners. In the 1997 crisis, the IMF forced South Korea to take a bailout and the adverse effect it had on Korean's economy caused the closings of financial institutions, losing jobs for 5% of workers and decreased earnings for the majority of the population.

Attitudes against different races

Overt racist attitudes are more commonly expressed towards immigrants from poorer Asian countries,

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, while racist attitudes toward immigrants of Australasian,

Western European Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

descent are more commonly expressed via subtle racism and

microaggression Microaggression is a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized group ...

s. However, while Japan is a wealthy Asian country, there exists a significant amount of

Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea Anti-Japanese sentiment; , ''Banil gamjeong'' in Korean society has its roots in historic, cultural, and nationalistic sentiments. The first recorded anti-Japanese attitudes in Korea were effects of the Japanese pirate raids and the later 15 ...

, largely due to historical grievances and the history of

Japanese colonialism The territorial conquests of the Empire of Japan in the Western Pacific and East Asia regions began in 1895 with its victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Subsequent victories over the Russian Empire (Russo-Japanese War) and ...

in Korea. Attitudes of racism could also correlate to

classism Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense of ...

— a

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

an in South Korea would not generally face as much discrimination or negative attitudes as compared to a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

or a

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

n. Related discrimination has also been reported with regard to mixed-race children, Chinese Korean, and

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

n immigrants. Racism and discrimination against Muslims (who tend to be immigrants or foreign workers) is also common with many Koreans perceiving Muslims as a potential "terrorist group". These negative views stem from the rising prevalence of Islamophobia in Korea and the representation of Muslims and Islam in Korean media.

Denied public services

Due to the lack of an anti-discrimination law, it is common for people not of Korean ethnicity to be denied service at business establishments or in taxis without consequences. According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%).

COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 crisis, 1.4 million foreigners living in South Korea were initially excluded from the government's subsidy plan, which includes relief funds of up to 1 million won to Korean households. Although all people are susceptible to the virus, only foreigners who are married to Korean citizens were eligible for the money because of their "strong ties to the country". Following backlash, financial aid was extended to most foreigners in August that year. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has made schools in South Korea go fully online but the immigrant and refugee children have not received proper education opportunities due to the lack of appropriate online curriculum for them. In March 2021, several regions in Korea ordered all foreigners to undergo testing for COVID or risk a fine. This legislation has been criticized by activists for being discriminatory and racist.

Vaccine Passport

South Korea implemented a vaccine passport system during the COVID-19 pandemic, restricting access to high-risk venues such as bars, restaurants, and clubs. Korea's vaccine passport system was criticized as being discriminatory because did not recognize the vaccinations of foreigners who had been vaccinated overseas unless one has obtained a quarantine exemption while allowing recognizing overseas vaccinations of Korean nationals with or without a quarantine exemption. The then British Ambassador to South Korea, Simon Smith, criticized the vaccine passport on the official Twitter account for the British Embassy in Seoul, saying "If evidence produced by a Korean national of an overseas vaccination is good enough for that vaccination to be registered for the vaccine pass, the same evidence should be good enough to register the overseas vaccinations of foreign nationals too." The United States embassy made a public statement saying, "The U.S. Embassy in Seoul is aware of the Korean Government’s discriminatory policy which prevents U.S. citizens from registering vaccinations received in the United States with local health centers" and that they were raising their concerns to the highest levels of government to resolve this issue. On December 6, 2021, the ambassadors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the EU Delegation to Korea jointly urged the South Korean government to recognize overseas vaccinations of foreigners. South Korea reversed their policy on December 9, 2021, allowing non-Korean nationals to register their vaccines, which allowed access to the vaccine passport and the third booster shot.

Legislation

Recent legislation—in particular, the Foreign Workers' Employment Act (2004) and Support for Multicultural Families (2008)—have improved the situation of immigrants, more efficiently protecting their human and labor rights. In 2011, the South Korean military abandoned a regulation barring mixed-race men from enlisting, and changed the oath of enlistment to not reference racial purity ('' minjok'') to citizenship. Similarly, related concepts have been withdrawn from school

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

. This has been accredited in part to international pressure—in particular, concern from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which stated persistent ethnic-centric thinking in South Korea "might be an obstacle to the realization of equal treatment and respect for foreigners and people belonging to different races and cultures". As of September 2021, South Korea was lacking an

, which has been globally recommended by the

in 2015. It is frequently discussed in South Korean media and by politicians. As a result, incidents have been reported where people were denied service at business establishments because of their ethnicity. Legislations to protect against discrimination has been brought up in 2007, 2010 and 2012. but the bills faced objections chiefly by conservative Protestants. Another attempt has been made in 2020 by a minor liberal Justice Party to “ban all kinds of discrimination based on gender, disability, age, language, country of origin, sexual orientation, physical condition, academic background and any other reason.” According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%).

In education

Only 40% of mixed-race elementary and middle school students, or students born out of international marriages are considered Koreans by their classmates. Almost 50% of students said they have difficulties maintaining relationships with students who do not share the same nationality background. The reason given by Korean students is because of their classmates' different skin colors (24.2%), fear of being outcast by other Korean students (16.8%), and feeling of embarrassment if being friends with mixed-race children (15.5%) Korean children also show a tendency to discriminate against Africans and people of African descent. In a 2015 research by Education Research International, Korean children show negative responses to darker-skin characters in picture book illustrations. This attitude of children is seen as a reflection of their parent's anti-blackness prejudice towards black people and white-dominant surroundings. In 2009, Paul Jambor (Assistant professor at Korea University) claimed that Korean college students exhibit discrimination towards foreign professors by calling them by their first names and not showing the same amount of respect towards them as students traditionally show towards their Korean professors.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:South Korea, Racism in Racism by country Korean nationalism