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NORTHEAST ASIA
Unjust vexation
Migrant and human rights groups in South Korea are calling for an investigation into the expulsion of 22 Uzbek students from Hanshin University, citing unfair treatment and a lack of due process.
In a press conference held on Dec. 21, the groups urged Seoul’s Justice Ministry to look into the alleged forced expulsions of the students and to revise the “discriminatory immigration policies that view students from a particular country as potential criminals.”
“The Justice Ministry must revise its relevant guidelines and policies so that such an incident does not repeat itself in the future. There also needs to be an overhaul in a policy approach that views international residents and students as nothing more than a specified period of stay, rather than viewing them as humans,” the coalition added.
The students, who were enrolled in Hanshin’s Korean language institute under a three-month study visa that was valid until March 2024, were expelled on Nov. 27 for purportedly violating an immigration rule mandating foreign students to maintain a balance of 10 million won (US$7,600) in a Korean bank during their stay.
However, the students denied being notified of this rule and that on the day they were expelled, they were misled into boarding a bus en route to the airport after being told that they were merely going to get their registration cards from the immigration office.
This incident brought to the fore concerns around systemic discrimination in South Korea, which remains one of only two developed countries without an anti-discrimination law to address gender inequality and xenophobia.
U.N. experts have been calling on Korea to enact such a law since 2014 to help “build on the progress made in addressing the issue of racism and xenophobia, in view of the country’s history of ethnic and cultural homogeneity.”
A 2020 survey by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) found that nearly 70 percent of foreign residents experienced racial discrimination in the East Asian country.
International students – who make up the largest portion of Korea’s foreign population as of 2023 – are not exempt from racist acts. A 2020 study by Luis dos Santos of Woosong University showed that many suffered from hate speech, microaggressions and workplace discrimination.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Building blocks of modern-day slavery
Leading figures in America’s apparel and footwear industry trained a spotlight on Cambodia’s so-called “blood bricks” sector, which human rights groups have previously characterized as akin to modern-day slavery.
In a letter to Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet on Dec. 18, the American Apparel and Footwear Association urged his administration to intensify its efforts in ensuring that the country’s brick factories comply with labor and environmental laws, and to rescue bonded and child laborers within the industry.
The trade group – which counts among its members top global apparel and footwear companies – noted reports by media and civil society groups that the textile industry has been fueling Cambodia’s “blood bricks” sector, which has been churning out building materials to support the country’s construction boom while also leaving several families in crushing debt and the country even more susceptible to climate change.
“Our industry does not condone the practices described in these reports,” Lamar said. “Through our collective policies and practices, we work to prevent the illegal use of our branded products, or the waste generated from the production of our products, from being used in this manner.”
The AAFA appeal echoed a similar call made by the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) last November, when the latter published a report documenting the various human rights abuses suffered by brick kiln workers in the country.
LICADHO found that many brick factory workers were perpetually indebted to the owner and were not allowed to live or work elsewhere until their loans are repaid in full.
Cambodia’s brick sector – which contributes to the 1.3 trillion bricks produced in Asia annually – also continues to hire child laborers between the ages of 9 and 17, the report said. While LICADHO itself did not provide figures, a 2020 survey by the Builders and Woodworkers Trade Union Association (BWTUC) estimates that at least 600 children were employed in 464 kilns nationwide.
An earlier study by the NGO Blood Bricks was among the first to implicate Cambodia’s garment and footwear industry in the abuses committed by the brick sector. Among others, they revealed that textile waste was being used as cheap fuel in kilns, exposing their workers to black carbon and other suspended particulates that cause respiratory illnesses in workers.
SOUTH ASIA
Defending the defenders
For years, human rights defender Jeewaratnam Suresh has advocated for the welfare of Sri Lanka’s persecuted Malaiyaha Tamils, who continue to work in slave-like conditions in the country’s tea plantations while enduring shoddy housing in plantation line rooms.
Unfortunately, this work has made him a recent target of harassment and threats, prompting rights group Frontline Defenders to appeal for an investigation and to ensure that he and his family members – as well as other human rights defenders in Sri Lanka – are free from intimidation.
“Front Line Defenders is concerned by the threats against, and intimidation of, Jeewaratnam Suresh in connection with his advocacy and successful legal challenge to advance his community’s rights,” it said in a statement on Dec. 20. “We believe these threats are an attempt to silence the human rights defender and keep him from pursuing his important work.”
On Dec. 16, Suresh received an anonymous call threatening him to stop his advocacy or face dire consequences. Just days before, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka ruled in favor of a petition he had filed in March seeking better housing conditions for Tamils living in plantations.
The court ruling mandates the state to provide plantation residents with postal addresses – which have been historically denied to the Tamils, who have long endured rights abuses. They were effectively stateless for decades until they were granted universal citizenship in 2003.
Even though many of them work in tea and rubber plantations that are a critical part of Sri Lanka’s economy – it is the world’s second largest tea exporter – many of the Tamils are landless and poor as a result of years-long disenfranchisement.
Meanwhile, social workers and activists who fight for their rights, like Suresh, often find themselves targets of state violence. Just last September, Tamil activist Balraj Rajkumar was subjected to prolonged questioning by the Counter-Terrorism and Investigation Department (CTID), which accused him of “advocating for and supporting a prohibited group.”
Last April, Frontline Defenders also sounded the alarm on the sudden police interrogation of Tamil journalist and human rights defender, Ramachandran Sanath, who was summoned by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID), which refused to disclose the purpose of the inquiry.
GLOBAL/REGIONAL
An earnest challenge to UN and member states
Civil society groups have separately challenged the United Nations and its member-states to defend themselves against undue influence – whether it’s in the form of brazen corruption, or allowing hostile states to hijack the global body’s efforts to investigate rights abuses across the world.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a coalition of 110 civil society organizations separately issued calls last week while the embattled U.N. struggled to maintain relevance in the face of multiple crises this year. These include the ongoing Russia-Ukraine invasion; the indiscriminate civilian killings in the Gaza Strip; soaring inflation; and the growing climate crisis.
HRW lamented how the U.N. saw a surge of efforts by member states with poor human rights records seeking to cut off funding for investigations into their own abuses. At the helm of such efforts are Russia and China, which are leading a group of governments with equally poor rights records to defund investigations into human rights abuses in Nicaragua, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, and Eritrea.
Meanwhile, the coalition of civil society groups who observed the 10th Session of the Conference of the States Parties (CoSP10) to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) called on U.N. member states to ensure that human rights are at the core of all their anti-corruption efforts. This means protecting civic spaces, promoting transparency and access to information, and protecting whistleblowers, human rights defenders, and anti-corruption activists.
This is especially relevant in light of current events, as the coalition argued that corruption “fuels and exacerbates wars and conflicts [and] undermines society as a whole.”
Whether the U.N. could step up to these challenges remains to be seen, however. Recently, the global body – founded in the aftermath of World War II – along with the rest of the world, is seeing the rise of new threats, such as terrorism, climate change, and pandemics, at a time when the world’s leaders seem to be turning away from the principles of internationalism in favor of narrower partnerships like NATO and G-20.
The supposedly powerful U.N. Security Council, for example, has repeatedly found itself in a stalemate because of the vetoing power of five of its members (China, France, Russia, U.S., and the U.K.): Russia has blocked all action on Ukraine; while the U.S. has thumbed down all resolutions calling for a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip.
