Legal committee proposed to oversee multicultural policy

A legal revision was proposed Sunday to unify the government offices responsible for helping multicultural families and enhance the effectiveness of related support programs.

Rep. Lee Chan-yeol of the main opposition Democratic Party submitted a revision bill to the current law on supporting multicultural families, suggesting that a legal committee be set up under the Prime Minister’s Office.

Eight different ministries have been involved in providing support to marriage immigrants, foreign workers and their children thus far. However, they have faced criticism for wasting money on overlapping programs or those for temporary benefits.

An existing committee, affiliated with the Prime Minister’s Office, has not played a role in overseeing the activities of each government office because there is no legal grounds to do so under the current law.

“About five years have passed since the Korean government started support programs for multicultural families in 2006. However, such support is still not enough. I hope the revision will be helpful in advancing the nation’s multicultural policy,” Lee said.

The revision specifies the role of some 200 support centers for multicultural families across the nation in order to improve the effectiveness of each facility.

Support for language education was also included in the revision so that marriage immigrants can ask for help from the central or local governments when they want to learn the Korean language.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)