COMMITTEE: G20

COUNTRY: South Korea

Topic: Countering Xenophobia and its impacts on Politics, Society and Education

Over the past ten years, the Republic of Korea has grown in popularity as a migration
destination. The number of migrants in the nation has increased more than five times, from
244.2 thousand in 2000 to 1327.3 thousand in 2015, making up 17.5 percent of all migrants in
Eastern Asia. Only 5% of the population is non-Korean, indicating how homogeneous Korea
is. The Republic of Korea, committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
other fundamental international human rights treaties, works to ensure that all migrants are
able to fully enjoy their human rights in order to enable a social and humane living for the
expanding migrant community. It also aims to combat racism, xenophobia, and intolerance
toward all migrants as well as other forms of prejudice. The Korean government has adopted
a comprehensive approach to uphold the human rights of immigrants living there and help
their integration into societies.
The most institutionalised and systematic forms of racism in the past were those pursued by
some nations through colonial policies. While the majority of nations on the continents of
Africa, Latin America, and Asia had to deal with color-based racial discrimination, the
Korean people had to deal with acute national prejudice due to Japanese military occupation.
The "Japanization of the Korean names" and "Oneness of Japan and Korea" policies, which
required all Koreans to adopt Japanese names and only speak and write in Japanese, were the
most heinous measures taken to obliterate a nation that had never existed anywhere else in
the world's colonial history. Japanese colonialism played a significant role in the
development of Korean nationalism. There is still a sense of fear because the Korean
peninsula is bordered by powerful nations like China, Japan, and Russia. These influences are
still extremely strong today.
Since the 2000s, more overt racist statements have been made in South Korea, which has
sparked criticism of those statements as well. Newspapers frequently exposed and criticized
discrimination against immigrants, whether it takes the form of pay below the minimum wage,
wage withholding, hazardous working conditions, physical abuse, or general denigration.
We also acknowledge that migrant children have the right to an education and that, in the
context of migration, children and young people's access to an education is fundamentally
protective. The Korean government offers elementary and secondary education to migrant
children regardless of their parent's immigration status in order to guarantee the right to
education to all migrant children. Additionally, in order to help migrant children better adjust
to school, the Korean government permits them to enrol in or transfer to a school that
includes a particular class for migrant children. The Korean government will keep taking the
necessary steps to increase migrant children's access to education, including expanding
Korean language programmes and providing specialised vocational consulting services.
We think that discrimination against and exclusion of migrants are closely related to racism
and xenophobia. Thus, the Korean government works to raise public knowledge through
education in order to encourage tolerance and respect for migrants. In 2007, 2009, and 2015,
the primary and senior school curricula were changed to include lessons on respecting
migrants and human rights. The scope of teacher training programmes has also been
increased to foster an understanding of students in the context of migration. As the
cornerstone of all human activity, we firmly believe that everyone, including migrants, have a
fundamental right to health. Everybody has the right to the enjoyment of the best achievable
standard of health, according to international human rights treaties including the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.
The Korean government offers medical care to immigrants who are not covered by the
country's current health care systems in order to support the right of migrants to health. Since
the program's inception in 2005, the spectrum of beneficiaries and participating medical
organisations has been growing. The significance of having access to justice in ensuring
migrant inclusion and integration cannot be overstated. The Korean government launched the
pilot "community attorneys for migrants" programme in October 2015 to guarantee that all
migrants have adequate and efficient access to justice. The programme offers free legal
advice in 20 languages to all migrants on a variety of matters, including civil, criminal,
family, and employment-related ones.
The delegate of South Korea strongly believes that all are entitled to equal protection against
xenophobia and recognizing the aim of the UN TOGETHER initiative in this regard, we will
continue our measures to prevent all forms of xenophobia and promote respect, safety and
dignity for all migrants in the country.
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 COMMITTEE: G20
COUNTRY: South Korea
SCHOOL: Indian School Muscat
DELEGATE NAME: Prischa Bajeli

Topic: Strong, Sustainable, Balanced and Inclusive Growth for The Near Future

Korea has long been praised for its extraordinary economic achievement. By the end of the
20th century, it has developed into an advanced economy after emerging from the ruins of the
Korean War (1950–1953), which almost destroyed all productive capability. In doing so,
Korea became the only nation in the world to switch from being a recipient of aid to
providing aid during the post-war era. It has an excellent track record of macroeconomic
stability - The economy was severely affected by the Asian Financial Markets Crisis in the
late 1990s, but this prompted extensive economic reforms with the goal of strengthening the
nation's resistance to regional and global economic shocks.
Few other nations have the same success as Korea in combining rapid economic growth with
considerable reductions in poverty. Korea's poverty issue was as severe at the start of its
development push as it is in the majority of emerging nations. What is remarkable is how
quickly and effectively Korea was able to bring the issue to a manageable level. By the end of
the 1980s, the effort had been successful; following a pause in 1997–1998 due to the East
Asian financial crisis, the poverty rate started to fall once more. Given that less than 25% of
the nation is suitable for agriculture or other economic activity and that Korea has relatively
few natural resources, the achievement of the nation is all the more remarkable. Additionally,
the nation went through a terrible civil war that largely destroyed its infrastructure. The
success of Korea was largely due to the country's adoption of good economic principles,
utilisation of available opportunities, and insistence on a disciplined work effort. That
strategy has been maintained since the early 1960s.
One of the first nations to formally accept the UN Sustainable Development Goals was South
Korea in 2015. A global action plan to achieve sustainable development by 2030 is outlined
in these 17 goals. These objectives were taken up by South Korea, who then began to
compare them to new and proposed government policies. The government developed new
policy gradually. They based it on the sustainable development goals set forth by the UN and
made an effort to address each one.
The International Development Association, the World Bank's fund that aids the world's
poorest nations, receives significant funding from Korea, a significant development partner of
the World Bank Group. In terms of sustainable development, providing improved
infrastructure and services to improve people's lives, and making the transition to a vibrant
knowledge economy, Korea today offers development experience that serves as an inspiration
to many developing nations.
Overall, labour market and demographic trends, capital investment, the accumulation of
human capital, and productivity development were all equal contributors to Korea's success.
The primary driver of growth, however, developed in stages, starting with labour and human
capital considerations in the 1960s, capital deepening in the 1970s, and then productivity
increases in the decades that followed. Instead of labour or capital investment, the main
drivers of continuous growth over the past six decades have been the growth of productivity
and human capital.
The main takeaways from Korea's experience are that well-thought-out and effectively
implemented policies are essential for economic success, that they can even make up for a
severe lack of natural resources, and that the dramatic transformation of per capita incomes
on the scale witnessed by Korea does not happen overnight, but demands a sustained
commitment.
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