신정부에서의 외국인 인권 증진을 위한 과제

Abstract

The priority of immigration policy had not been on the human rights of foreign immigrants during the former two presidents’ governments. During those time the target of immigration policy had focused primarily on ‘inducement of outstanding talent’ and ‘high-quality social integration’, but the former governments was less interested when it comes to immigrants who fell into any category of outstanding talent. Let’s summarize some of the contents of this paper. It is important in the promotion of human rights to observe international and national human rights standards. There are many ways to discuss about protection of human rights, but it’s appropriate to abide by international human rights conventions which Republic of Korea(ROK) has ratified, and the national constitution. It is a fundamental principle of the labor law that employers and employees are to decide working conditions on an equal basis. For that purpose, it needs to be given accurate informations to migrant workers in poor position and to be free from the risk of unfair dismissal. As a representative example, some employers could dismiss migrant workers arbitrarily by using report of employment alteration. This paper proposes the solution including admitting relief through Labor Relations Commission or the courts. One of the most big arguments about migrant workers has been the freedom of establishment movement, but still been not resolved. This paper suggests a few alternatives, one of which is to admit freedom of movement to a migrant worker staying for a long time, for example at the end of three years since entering this country. Undocumented migrant workers' children are not registered to local government or diplomatic institutions of the land of citizenship, and usually fall into the de facto statelessness status. But, we should not neglect them because ROK had ratified ‘the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’(‘CRC’) in 1991. Even though we can’t ensure the right fully on the children's rights that CRC had guaranteed, it’s necessary to protect them gradually from basic or easy lists including the right of migrant children's birth registration. The claim that migrant workers hired in the agricultural and fisheries sectors was in the very poor conditions, violating human rights, has been brought up from local and foreign media and international organizations. We should prevent employers from working for a long time by deleting the exclusion from application working hours regulation in Labor Standards Act, and make requirements of employers of that sectors who can hire migrant workers more stringent. Human rights issues in Korea were divided into a variety of subjects and points during a few decades. By the way, they can think the importance of human rights issues subordinate, rather than ‘inducement of outstanding talent’ and ‘high-quality social integration’, but on the contrary the protection of human rights is needed for those.