No country for asylum-seekers: The complexity of refugee protection in South Korea

7 August 2023

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 forced millions of Ukrainians to leave their homes to seek protection and assistance. Globally, over 6.2 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded to date, and although most refugees have fled to countries within Europe, a few thousand have turned to South Korea. In the months following Russia’s invasion, the South Korean government took several measures to ease the entry and stay of a particular group of Ukrainian refugees: those of Korean descent, known as Koryo-saram — the name broadly given to ethnic Koreans originating from post-Soviet Union countries. These measures include simplifying the visa issuance process and granting humanitarian stay as well as enabling long-term residence and employment. Instead of legal refugee status, Korean Ukrainians were issued an Overseas Korean Visa (F-4) or a Working Visit Visa (H-2), both applicable only to ‘co-ethnic compatriots’ (dongpo). It is unlikely that Korean Ukrainian refugees would be granted legal refugee status, even if they decided to apply for one.

Besides these limited measures, the South Korean government has been silent on offering refuge to non-Korean Ukrainians. South Korea’s response towards the Ukrainian refugee crisis reflects its restrictive stance on asylum-seekers, specifically those who are not of Korean descent. Despite international commitments, the asylum adjudication process in South Korea creates significant barriers for refugees, making it nearly impossible to find protection in the country.

South Korea’s impossible asylum adjudication system

Among the wealthiest democracies in the world, South Korea is notorious for recognising an exceptionally small number of asylum-seekers as refugees. In 2022, for example, Korea’s refugee recognition rate (RRR) was around 2 per cent, compared to 40 per cent in EU+ countries. That year was not an exception: Korea’s average RRR over the past decade has been less than 3 per cent.

South Korea’s migration agenda has primarily been utilitarian, prioritising migrant populations that are deemed undisruptive to the Korean social and ethnic makeup, and necessary to the development of the nation, while imposing restrictions on those who are not.

Korea’s status as an extreme outlier is puzzling, especially given that it is committed by international and national law to participate in refugee protection. South Korea is not only a state party to the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees — the key international legal documents that form the basis of the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — but it has also enacted an independent and comprehensive law on refugee protection in 2012 titled the Refugee Act. Notably, the Refugee Act outlines asylum-seeker and refugee rights as well as the details on Refugee Status Determination (RSD), a legal and administrative process that decides whether a person seeking asylum is a refugee under the law.

To be legally recognised as a refugee in Korea, one must jump over multiple bureaucratic and legal hurdles of RSD. These include filing for an application and initial interview with an immigration officer. Furthermore, asylum-seekers must physically be present in Korea to be eligible to apply for refugee status. If the application is denied, the applicant may appeal to the Refugee Committee under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice. If the appeal is denied, the applicant may proceed with administrative litigation, requesting the courts to revoke the decision made by the immigration office.

While RSD is a common practice in refugee-hosting states, Korea’s standard of RSD is among the toughest in the Global North. In South Korea, this is at least partly due to the institution responsible for overseeing the initial stages of the RSD process: the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice has been one of the main government institutions implementing immigration regulations since 1961. One of its key duties in immigration has been to control — rather than protect — migrant populations in Korea, involving the management of foreign stays, screening foreigner entry, and deporting undocumented individuals.

The Ministry of Justice is not shy about expressing its suspicion toward migrants and refugees. For example, in 2021, the chief at the Seoul Immigration Office, the largest office that processes refugee applications, proclaimed on the official website: “We will take the lead in Korea’s border management [...] through strict law enforcement for immigration offenders, such as illegal immigrant workers, fake refugee applicants, and foreigners suspected of terrorism, who are taking jobs away from common [Koreans]”. A similar emphasis on the ‘establishment of law and order’ and ‘fairness’ is evident in other immigration offices across South Korea as part of their institutional goals.

These institutional priorities significantly influence the decision-making process of immigration officers conducting interviews with refugee applicants. Many immigration officers treat refugee applicants as subjects to be carefully scrutinised and filtered, rather than people seeking protection due to a well-founded fear of persecution at home, as defined by international (and Korean) laws.

Although many denied applicants appeal to South Korean courts, very few decisions get revoked each year. This is partly because the courts require an extremely high standard of proof from refugee applicants, like documentary evidence and eyewitnesses to back up their oral claims. As the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status recognises, however, “it is hardly possible for a refugee to ‘prove’ every part of his case and, indeed, if this were a requirement the majority of refugees would not be recognized”. The South Korean courts’ high evidentiary standards often present insurmountable challenges to applicants who, due to their very circumstances as asylum-seekers, are unable to support their claims with enough evidence.

‘Asylum-seekers’ conflicts with South Korean migration policy

While the RSD process in South Korea makes it almost impossible for asylum-seekers to be granted refugee status, ‘asylum-seekers’ as a category of migrants also fundamentally conflicts with the general policy directives the Korean government pursues on migration.

Asylum-seekers are people seeking protection from persecution in a country other than their own; they are granted admission solely based on their status as people needing refuge. However, South Korea’s migration agenda has primarily been utilitarian, prioritising migrant populations that are deemed undisruptive to the Korean social and ethnic makeup, and necessary to the development of the nation, while imposing restrictions on those who are not. This particular agenda has led to the admittance of temporary foreign workers (the majority of whom are co-ethnic labourers), and women marriage migrants who can blend in seamlessly as part of Korean families.

South Korea imports unskilled foreign workers through a guest worker programme to fill labour shortages in sectors native Koreans avoid. These workers are treated strictly as sojourners, hired temporarily to meet the state’s economic needs, with the expectation of returning to their countries upon completing their contracts. Within the confines of unskilled labour importation, the Korean government gives preferential treatment to co-ethnic foreign nationals, primarily ethnic Koreans from China (Joseonjok) and Koryo-saram, in terms of the entry procedures and number of industries they can work in, among other things. This special treatment is based on the rationale that co-ethnic foreign nationals will provide needed labour for economic development while causing “minimal disruption of Korean society and the Korea[n] labor market” — an idea that rests on the arguable assumption that co-ethnic foreign workers will have less difficulty adjusting in Korea compared to those who are not co-ethnics.

Korea’s utilitarian approach extends to ‘marriage migrants’ as well. Unlike labour migrants, these mostly female marriage migrants are expected to settle permanently in Korean society. Over the past two decades, the government’s policies regarding marriage migrants have faced criticism for cultivating women’s roles as caregivers and child-bearers for Korean families and, by extension, the Korean nation. For instance, the Support for Multicultural Families Act, a law enacted in 2008 to support marriage migrants and their families, specifies that female migrants will receive various services related to pregnancy and childbirth, such as helpers before and after childbirth, and medical examinations. In light of Korea’s now well-documented ever-decreasing fertility rate, the government’s persistent emphasis on the role of migrant women as reproducers underscores its utilitarian expectations.

Categorically, asylum-seekers applying for refugee status in Korea do not align with the overall migration policy agenda of the Korean government. They represent an ethnically and racially diverse group, predominantly consist of men, seek permanent residency in Korea (in theory), and, perhaps most importantly from the perspective of the Korean government, do not directly fulfil a specific need of the Korean nation.

The future of Korea’s refugee reception

In South Korea, there is very little political conversation about protecting refugees. Despite having witnessed the invasion of Ukraine that triggered the largest refugee crisis of the century, neither the progressive Moon Jae-in administration that stepped down in May 2022, nor the current conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration have shown much interest in engaging with the issue. Notwithstanding the political neglect, the number of refugee applicants in Korea has continuously grown from 1,143 in 2012 to more than 11,500 in 2022.

There are certainly calls for reform on refugee rights and the RSD process in Korea, most of which come from a small but committed civil society of human rights lawyers and activists. In fact, the passage of the Refugee Act would not have been possible without the efforts of the first generation of these advocates. July 2023 marks ten years since the Refugee Act came into force. It seems to be a more fitting time than ever for the Korean government to reflect on what its role ought to be in international refugee protection.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dr Angela Y. McClean is a postdoctoral associate at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. Her research interests include international and forced migration, law and society, and Asia/Asian-American Studies. She received her PhD in Sociology at UC San Diego, MA in Regional-Studies – East Asia at Harvard University, and BA in East Asian Studies and American Studies at Wellesley College. Prior to her post at Yale, she was a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. Angela is currently working on a book about the politics of asylum and refugee protection in South Korea. Image credit: Flickr/Mooooool.