A right to asylum? Ensuring effective protection of migrant children’s rights in Africa

The path to inclusion for undocumented migrant children in South Korea

“…Hence, migrant children without residence permits become the subject of detention or deportation under Articles 51 and 46 of the Act, respectively. At present, the Korean government is implementing the soft-line measures to suspend the deportation of migrant children and their parents while they are attending school Lee TG, 2019). However, Korean laws remain silent on how children can obtain the right to stay after graduating from high school.…”

“…Likewise, in May 2006, the MOE established the "Measures to support children of multicultural families," which included children of "illegal foreign workers" as a target of the policy, even though the policies were mainly focused on children of "multicultural families." In August 2006, the MOJ took a temporary relief step for "illegal children" attending elementary school: The children and their parents were granted temporary residence permits and deportation was suspended for approximately one year (Lee TG, 2019). In September 2006, the Child Welfare Act was revised to prohibit racial discrimination and to impose duties on the government (Moon et al, 2018).…”

“…These guidelines required immigration offices to refrain from cracking down on undocumented migrant children attending primary and middle school, and suspended the deportation of children and their parents until they graduated from middle school (Lee TG, 2019). Its application was eventually extended to high school students in 2013.…”

“…8 In the following year, the NHRC recommended that the MOJ take appropriate measures and prepare regulations that would prevent undocumented children from being separated from their parents and being evicted from Korea (Hwang, 2013). As a consequence, the NHRC announced "the First Guideline for Human Rights of Migrants" in 2012 and "the Second Guideline for Human Rights of Migrants" in 2019 (Lee TG, 2019;Lee JH, 2021). The guidelines suggest principles and measures that the government should respect to guarantee human rights of migrants.…”