By Bae Ji-sook
Staff ReporterA lawmaker will submit a bill that will allow the children of illegal aliens to get public education.
The bill stipulates that children of both legal and illegal foreign residents have the right to an education as guaranteed by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Korea signed the convention in 1991.
“Current law does allow such children to go to public school here. But principals have the authority to accept or reject them,” said Rep. Kim Se-yeon of the ruling Grand National Party Tuesday.
If the bill is enacted, foreign children can gain admission to elementary, middle and high schools in South Korea without being questioned on their parents’ residency status.
The proposal is a crucial step in accepting illegal aliens here, analysts say. An estimated 225,000 foreigners illegally reside in the country, accounting for 20 percent of the overall foreign population.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that children of illegal immigrants should not be punished by being denied public education. Therefore, states cannot ask public school students if they are legal or illegal residents of the country.
“The thing that matters is whether they go to school where they reside,” lawyer Lee Gang-cheol said.
Other countries also allow the children of illegal immigrants to attend school. In France, a person is not required to turn in their visas or residency documents, allowing illegal residents’ children to receive public education until the age of 16.
How will this work then? Illegal immigrants being chased with tasers and stun guns while ushering their kids to school? What the UN says certainly dictates for what Korean ‘official policy’ states, but expect a different process beneath the glossy veneer that is oft-projected to those looking in.
Not enough screws, but it’s a start:
Seoul, July 22 (Yonhap) - South Korea’s communications regulatory body said Tuesday it plans to widen the range of Internet Web sites that require user identification prior to posting responses on news and other online content.
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said it plans to compel Web sites with daily traffic of more than 100,000 visitors to implement the system as part of a comprehensive scheme aimed at strengthening protection of private information.
Currently, news-related Web sites with more than 200,000 visitors per day and general portals such as Naver.com with over 300,000 daily visitors have introduced the system to prevent users from posting defamatory comments on blogs and news content.
The measure, which the KCC plans to implement by the end of the year following legal and administrative procedures, will effectively enforce online gaming sites and other entertainment-related pages to follow suit with more popular news and general portal operators, such as Naver and Daum, that are currently complying with the system.
It also plans to amend related laws to require peer-to-peer file- sharing Web site operators to closely monitor illegal trading of copyrighted material and punish portal operators that do not immediately respond to reported victims of defamation through online comments.
“The measure is part of a plan to foster a sound online environment for netizens,” Lim Cha-shik, head of KCC’s user network divisions, said.
Early this year Korea’s National Tax Service began offering English assistance to guide foreign taxpayers through the filing procedures. The move is part of a broader government plan aimed at better accommodating foreign residents in the country. The NTS began the project with 10 pilot centers in February and added 20 more this month due to rising demand.
The number of foreign residents who have finalized their taxes through the year-end tax settlement increased almost 170 percent from 2001 to 287,000 last year. Those who have also had to declare foreign income on their returns increased nearly 330 percent over the same period to more than 13,000.
In addition to the new booths, the NTS published a guide that answers frequently-asked questions. The guide’s entire content is also up on its English-language website. Those who don’t want to go to the office or visit the website also have the option of calling the NTS English Assistance Hotline.
Although it’s a little soon to conclude the additions are successful, the responses so far have been positive. The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea sent a letter to the NTS, saying they welcome and fully support the initiative. But others still wonder whether the demand will be high enough as many foreign entrepreneurs often hire accountants.
Once the English service has been tested over time and shown to be stable, the agency plans to broaden the services to other languages like Chinese and Vietnamese.
Singer Lee Hyo-lee is again at the center of controversy. Critics charge that the music video for the track “U-GO-Girl” from her third album plagiarizes Christina Aguilera’s video for “Candyman.” And some say the nurse that Lee portrays in the video is too provocative, with Netizens taking issue with the nurse costume’s plunging neckline.
One netizen has opened a link on a portal demanding the music video be edited and has begun a signature drive. “Nurses study and work very hard but they’re exposed to sexual innuendo and harassment at work,” another Netizen wrote. “They are belittled in society because they’re portrayed in this kind of image.” Another said, “I’m joining the signature drive and regret that my heart thumped at the sight of a nurse uniform. My bad.”
And yet the controversy has succeeded in generating more buzz for the video, which has become popular on YouTube and other sites. It’s not the first time a distorted image of nurses has generated debate. Park Mi-kyung played a racy scene in a nurse outfit in her 2004 music video for “Hot Stuff”, drawing protests from the Korean Nurses Association.
Source: Chosun Ilbo
By Park Hyong-ki
Staff ReporterThe salary gap between men and women working in the financial industry is still wide, further posing a problem related to remuneration for female employees.
According to financial statements submitted to the Financial Supervisory Service in 2007 by local banks, securities and insurance companies, women received an annual salary of 40 million won on average, less than 50 percent of that of men.
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MANILA, Philippines — Following separate announcements of the European Union and Malaysia of stricter policies against illegal migrants, South Korea has stepped up its own campaign to chase out illegal migrant workers, an alliance of overseas Filipino workers in the north Asian country said in a statement Thursday.
Pol Bar, president of the Katipunan ng mga Samahan ng Migranteng Manggagawa sa Korea (Kasammako), said South Korean immigration authorities use tasers (electroshock weapons) and electric stun guns in rounding up migrant workers.
He also cited instances where even pregnant women and men who are sick were arrested, incarcerated and consequently deported by the police.
Bar, whose Kasammako is a member organization of Migrante, called South Korea’s intensified crackdown and deportation “treacherous” and “a contradiction to the well publicized notion that South Korean society is becoming a humane multi-cultural society.”
“The intensive crackdown has forcibly deported thousands of migrant workers in spite of their health and family conditions,” he said.
As of December 2007, there are a total of 80,715 Filipinos in South Korea, according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. Of the number, 6,187 are permanent residents, 62,528 are temporary, and an estimated 12,000 are irregular.
Bar’s report prompted Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado to urge the Arroyo government to file a diplomatic protest against South Korea for its manner of arresting and deporting undocumented workers.
Regalado said President Lee Myung-Bak’s marching orders issued last February were to flush out “unregistered aliens” in their country. She said immigration authorities there were given monthly quota of 3,000 arrests and deportations.
In Seoul and Busan, where Filipinos abound, the quotas are 600 and 250 respectively.
Regalado also criticized the quota system, which has “emboldened [South Korean authorities] to undertake Gestapo-like arrests, indiscriminately raiding work places, train stations, and churches even without a warrant.”
She recalled a similar crackdown in Malaysia in 2002 and 2005 when undocumented Filipinos there suffered “unspeakable horrors.”
In the 2002 and 2005 crackdowns, which Migrante documented after several fact-finding missions, Malaysian authorities used attack dogs in rounding up undocumented foreigners in their communities, forcing thousands to seek refuge in the mountains.
“Migrant communities were also razed to the ground to flush them out. Others also had their houses demolished using chainsaws. In 2005, the government hired more than 500,000 ‘relas’ (volunteers) who were given police power to arrest any suspected undocumented migrant worker, giving 80 ringgit-incentive per head,” Regalado said.
“Deportees also had to endure hellish conditions inside detention centers where some were even raped and tortured. Before being packed like sardines in boats, where scores died of exhaustion, respiratory problems and thirst, deportees were caned before they were allowed to leave,” she said.
Regalado noted the recent statements of Malaysian officials regarding illegal migrants with alarm.
She said that unless the Arroyo government comes out with a clear-cut policy statement on the issue, illegal migrants in Malaysia might see a repeat of 2002 and 2005 crackdowns.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos has said that there are an estimated 200,000 illegal Filipinos in Malaysia.
When the second phase of the high-speed KTX train project is completed in December 2010, a person will be able to travel from Seoul to Busan in two hours and 10 minutes instead of two hours and 45 minutes now.
The Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Ministry announced yesterday that it will launch the second phase next month. Under the plan, a station will be built in Ulsan and Busan Rail Station will be renovated by December 2010.
As part of the project, construction was launched last year to build the Shin Gyeongju Station.
Once the project is finished, it will take about 91 minutes to travel the first leg (Seoul to East Daegu), and an additional 39 minutes to travel the second leg.
The Ulsan Station’s construction will start next month. It will be a four-story building whose structure will symbolize the wings of a crane.
Once completed, the station will host 11,000 travelers daily, said the ministry. The new high-speed train will shorten by about two hours travel time to Seoul from Ulsan.
Likewise, the new Busan Station will reduce traffic running through it. In addition, once the construction of North Busan Port is completed, more than 150,000 people will ride the train in the new station, turning it into a new hub of transportation and tourism.
Senior ministry official Lee Jong-guk said, “Once the second-phase project is completed, Koreans can travel to and from every corner of the nation in half a day.”
An hour and a half from Seoul to Daegu. Plus the building of a KTX station in Gyeongju. Those shitty seats are almost bearable now.
Korea Beat offers the wrapping up of the week.
KTX attendants receive mandatory first-aid training in Gyeongsangbuk-do, this summer. Still no budget expenditure for improving those ungodly seats on KTX that must send frequent commuters to chiropractors.
With the break from rain, it’s time once again for Korea to be blanketed by insecticide spewed out from trucks.
