'Project Congress' for immigrants
이주민을 위한 '국회 프로젝트' 실시  
  
 
 
 
Iresha Dilani Perera, 34, from Sri Lanka, has lived in Korea for two years, with two children. She is acting as a panel member on the television program "Love in Asia."

Not only is her Korean fluent, but she also teaches Korean to senior citizens in a welfare center. She is a well-known celebrity and indispensable social figure in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province.

However, when she visits a bank or takes her children to the district library, she faces various obstacles. As she is still a Sri Lankan national, her name is still unlisted in the family relation register. In order to open a bank account or borrow some children's books, Perera has to prove her marital status, either by bringing her husband with her or submitting numerous documents. Her children, when submitting a family relation document at school, have to explain that they are not in a one-parent family and that their mother is a foreign national.

Perera complains that she faces too many unnecessary hardships in Korean society. She understands that Koreans are wary of illegal foreign workers, but claims that settlers such as herself should at least be given the opportunity to perform everyday tasks as a resident, wife and mother.

"If being Korean means being related to Korea and attached to its culture, I believe I am more of a Korean than many of the native Koreans," she said. "I just happen to have been born in another country."

Konomi Nakane, 59, a Japanese woman who has lived in Korea for 20 years, said Korean officials in charge of the multicultural home support system do not know the extent of the inconveniences foreign residents experience.

"Not only is tolerance for multicultural families important, but a corresponding social system is also required," she said.

The Center for Korean Women and Politics has started a three-year project called "An immigrant wife as 2010 local council member," supported by the Ministry of Gender Equality. The center believes it will be an effective way to help solve the difficulties experienced by Perera, Nakane and other foreign women living here with Korean spouses.

The core position of the program is that immigrant wives have become an important group in Korean society and that they now need to speak up for themselves, instead of remaining passive beneficiaries of state support.

The center, a Seoul-based private group devoted to promoting female participation in politics, recently invited several immigrant wives of various nationalities to two introduction sessions.

Kim Eun-joo, director of the CKWP, explains that what most of the immigrant wives, especially those who have long resided in Korea, need is not just one-sided guidance or education.

"The multicultural home support system is rather conservative and passive in its content," said Kim. "Those in charge of running the programs tend to focus on economic support for destitute multiracial families. What we really need to do is to accept them as equals, and empower them to stand up for themselves."

The project consists of three major phases. The first one, taking place this year, is to constitute a pool of immigrant wives who are interested enough in speaking up for their own lives. The second one, starting next year, is about selecting a core group that may actually be interested in running for office in the local council elections in 2010. It also includes helping the would-be candidate organize a network in her local community. The final phase will be support for the election campaign.

"Politics is not just about making public speeches and discussing abstract issues," said Bae Seon-hee, leading coach of the CKWP, at her lecture during the first session. "It is about prescribing an appropriate remedy for one's own problems. No one may know about your troubles and complaints better than yourselves."

Many of the women who agreed to participate in the program said that they have made the decision for their children. They said that can endure the inconveniences and prejudice, but saw that they were the only ones who could change the unreasonable social system.

"I saw myself as being acquainted with the issue of immigrant women," said Cha Se-won, secretary-general of the CKWP. "But I would never have known many of the issues proposed today by the participants."

She added that this was precisely why immigrant women need to take an active part in politics and represent their own rights.

At present, there are 41 female representatives, or 14 percent of the total members, in local councils across the country and the number is steadily growing.

The center aims at adding a first foreign national to the list, hopefully by 2010, and if not, in years to come.

"The bottom line is that we will be able to raise the public awareness on the needs of the increasing immigrant wives and their families," said director Kim.

Their bid does not appear a long shot, considering the increasing community of foreign women married to Korean men, who will be eager to vote for a candidate standing up for multicultural families.

About 40 percent of the Korean men living in rural areas who were married last year married foreign brides, according to government figures.

(tellme@heraldm.com)   2008  10. 29