ACRC, Actively Takes Measures to Resolve Grievance Petitions of Foreigners Living in South Korea

Holding a meeting on the multilingual petition service of e-People Ambassadors of five Asian countries to South Korea invited

(March 31^st 2023, ACRC)

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui) held a meeting on the protection of the rights and interests of foreigners living in South Korea on March 31 in the afternoon at the Korea Press Center, inviting diplomatic delegations from 5 Asian countries*, including Ambassadors of Myanmar to the Republic of Korea.

* Myanmar, Mongolia, Vietnam, Nepal, and Cambodia

“Multilingual Petition Service of e-People” was introduced, and foreigners living in Korea were encouraged to utilize the service at the meeting. Moreover, the meeting was a place for listening to major civil petitions of foreigners living in Korea and sharing extensive opinions regarding measures to protect their rights and interests with the diplomatic delegations.

In addition, with regard to the selection of the host city of World EXPO 2030 in November this year, a promotional video of “World EXPO 2030 Busan” was played during the meeting, and support and cooperation for Busan to be the host city was requested.

“Multilingual Petition Service of e-People” enables filing a petition in foreign languages in order for foreigners living in Korea who are fallen into the blind spot of the protection of their rights and interests due to the language barrier to easily access the civil petition service. The ACRC launched the service in 3 foreign languages in 2008. The service has expanded and enables filing a petition in 14 languages since 2016.

In the past three years, an average of 33,400 cases of civil petitions were received and handled through the “Multilingual Petition Service of e-People,” demonstrating achievements in the protection of the rights and interests of foreigners.

Despite the such quantitative expansion, however, other foreign languages, excluding English, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, were poorly utilized in the multilingual petition service. With this regard, the ACRC planned to show that the petition service is also available in the languages of five countries, including Myanmar, Mongolia, Vietnam, Nepal, and Cambodia and request each country for its interest and promotion.

ACRC Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui said, “Protecting the rights and interests of foreigners either living or staying in Korea is one of the important roles of the ACRC, in which close cooperation with Ambassadors to the Republic of Korea is imperative. Taking this meeting as an opportunity, I hope to establish close cooperative relations, and please give support and interest in hosting the World EXPO 2030 Busan.”