Seoul (The Korea Herald/ANN) - Students
from multicultural families are at a higher risk of being bullied at school in
South Korea as they are likely to have a hard time mingling with their peers
due to language problems and their different appearances.
An 11-year-old boy born to a
Bangladeshi father and a Korean mother was beaten by his classmates who
reportedly hated him for no reason, a local media outlet said. He had been so
abused until recently that he suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder
and sometimes feels the urge to kill himself.
A 2010 survey of about 186
students from multicultural families conducted by the National Human Rights
Commission found that about 41.9 per cent said they had been taunted by
classmates because of their different accents when speaking Korean.
Of them, 36.6 per cent said
their peers looked down on them based on their mother countries, and 25.3 per
cent said they were insulted for their different appearance, including skin
colour. Twenty-one per cent were told to leave the country, and 15.1 per cent
were beaten by peers out of hatred.
Many multicultural students who
have been bullied at schools said they wished to quit school, with 26.7 per
cent of those students citing taunts and discrimination as the main reason.
Currently, Korea has about 1.2
million foreign residents who account for two per cent of the total population
as of last July, according to statistics from the justice ministry.
With the increase in the number
of foreign immigrants, the number of their children has risen as well.
From 2008 to 2009, the number
of multicultural students surged by 53.9 per cent to 107,689.
Many of them are of elementary
school age. Some come to Korea in their adolescent years, but find it difficult
to avoid discrimination and bullying in the classroom as well as adjusting to
their new school life here.
Experts say that foreign or
multicultural teenagers, regardless of their legal or illegal status, should be
guaranteed the same education rights as Korean nationals. They also point out
that the current multicultural policy by the government is drawn up only for
legal immigrants, neglecting the illegal ones.
As a result, the children
without documents are left out of the social safety net and excluded from
education.
Considering the school problems
faced by foreign children, the education ministry has included them in their
policy range and tried to establish alternative schools to help these students
adjust to the regular school system since 2010. But children of illegal
immigrants are hardly protected in the system.
"The government should
help them receive language education for their studies and future careers, and
the education should be suitable to their age," said Jang Myung-seon of
the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, who recently led a research project
on foreign teenagers.
Lee Woo-young in Seoul/The
Korea Herald | ANN
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