IMADR: SüdKorea 2018

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CERD 97th Session Summary Report

On the 14th of December, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) concluded its 97th session. At the session, the CERD adopted concluding observations on Albania, Honduras, Iraq, Norway, Qatar and the Republic of Korea. *Recommendations with asterisks [*] are one-year follow-up recommendations.

Concluding observations, reports of the State parties and other stakeholders are available at the OHCHR website . You can also watch the video archives of the public meetings with the States parties at UN Web TV . During the 97th session, the Committee held the informal meeting with States parties .


The Committee welcomed the State party's efforts in the field of human rights such as the 2nd National Action Plan for Human Rights and hosting the national human rights institution with A status.
The Committee was encouraged by the State party's intention to enact a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, as the current legal framework falls short in addressing racist organisations and racist hate speech both offline and online.
The Committee requested the State party for information on sanctions against political and public figures for inciting racial hatred.
In addition, the Committee inquired about domestic application of the Convention and the definition of racial discrimination.
The Committee was particularly concerned by the human rights situation of migrants/ migrant workers such as labour exploitation, their enjoyment of the access to social protection, access to justice, right to form and join trade union, the absence of universal birth registration and stateless children, and immigration detention especially of women and children.
The Committee inquired about the protection of migrant women from multiple forms of discrimination including their access to employee benefits and vulnerable status in marriage.
The situation of migrant children also drew the Committee's attention such as crackdowns before and after primary and secondary schools.
#The State party was asked to provide disaggragated data of population including prison population.
The Committee raised concerns on the negative impacts of the State party's "Multicultural Family Support" programme in the portrayal of migrants in media, and in the society as a whole.
The Committee expressed concerns on the situation of asylum seekers and refugees - asylum seekers with humanitarian status are made vulnerable due to unstable visa status. The Committee expressed concerns on reports that the quality of refugee status determination process is not consistent including interpretation services.
The Committee requested the State party to provide detailed information of settlement of refugees from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Concerning human trafficking, the Committee asked the State party to provide data on prosecution of perpetrators and access to justice for victims.
Read more (English/ French) . NGO meeting (English/ French) . In its concluding observations , the Committee issued recommendations concerning following areas:
• Legislation and definition of racial discrimination;
• Racist hate speech;
• Migrant workers;
• Refugees and asylum-seekers;
• Undocumented migrants*;
• Protection of foreign women;
• “Marriage migrants” and “multicultural families”;
• Trafficking in persons;
• Birth registration*;
• Access to education; and
• Access to social security.


Download  the Summary Report
Download  Concluding Observations
Download  On the Report of the Government