On August 30, the “Whole-of-Government Task Force for the COVID-19 Recovery National Support Payment” announced its detailed implementation plan. It contains the criteria for selecting recipients, the application method and the payment methods. Households whose combined out-of-pocket health insurance premiums as of June 2021 are at or below the selection criterion will receive 250,000 won per person, paid by charging a credit or debit card, as local currency vouchers, as prepaid cards and so on. However, once again the majority of migrants have been excluded from this payment. Discrimination and exclusion are continuing in COVID support policies. We strongly condemn this and urge that migrants be included in disaster relief policies!
The migrants included in the implementation plan are “those who are registered on a resident registration record that includes at least one Korean national and who hold the same health insurance eligibility as Korean nationals, and permanent residents (F-5) and marriage migrants (F-6) who hold health insurance eligibility.” That is, of the 2 million migrants, only about 300,000 are included and all the rest are excluded. Even refugees, whom the National Human Rights Commission recommended including last year while dismissing a petition to correct discrimination in the central government’s disaster relief payment, are excluded.
Does the government really have the awareness and the will to correct the discrimination and exclusion in COVID disaster relief policies? Since the beginning of COVID last year, continuing discriminatory policies have followed, including discrimination in the purchase of public masks, exclusion from disaster relief payments, and exclusion from various support policies such as emergency employment support payments, and objections and protests have continued. Why does the government still insist on this discrimination and exclusion?
Migrants who stay and live in Korea should naturally be recognized as legitimate members of society. They work, pay earned income tax, resident tax, local taxes and various indirect taxes, and share the responsibility and duty of disease prevention. They also suffer the same damage from the COVID crisis. Therefore, there is no reason for them to be excluded from a disaster relief payment policy meant to support those who suffered damage and to encourage consumption for economic revitalization. The same is true under international human rights norms and the Constitution. In 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that Korea, as a state party, “express concern that several migrant groups are excluded from the social security system, and ensure that all persons living in its territory can receive basic social assistance regardless of nationality.” The Constitution stipulates the “right to a life worthy of human beings,” and this applies to migrants as well. Thus, under the Constitution and international law, migrants are naturally not to be discriminated against, have human dignity and worth, are guaranteed the right to a life worthy of human beings, and are subjects of the right to equality.
Moreover, for a government that says “people come first” and that places “respect for human rights” at the center of state affairs to exclude most migrants from those “people” and that “human rights” is to deny those very policies itself. Furthermore, to include migrants as necessary beings in population reproduction and expansion, the supplementing of the labor force, consumption and economic life, and the payment of various taxes and social insurance, and then to treat them as invisible beings in these disaster relief policies, has no justification whatsoever. If a hand is not extended when it is truly needed, how can one speak of coexistence and integration? The government must not continue this enormous discrimination and exclusion. It must end the discrimination and exclusion and pay migrants equally! We will persistently continue to raise objections and protest, including filing a petition with the National Human Rights Commission.
August 30, 2021. Joint statement of migrant rights organizations