National Human Rights Commission of Korea Annual Report 2021
that this case required an examination of whether the relevant issue is not in conflict with the intent
of Article 6 of the Constitution and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination, it made a recommendation in accordance with Paragraph 1, Article 25 of
the NHRCK Act.
The Commission found that, even considering the intent of the relevant laws and regulations not
to grant health insurance eligibility status to people visiting Korea for travel or other temporary
purposes, it is neither the intent of the relevant laws and regulations to take away the health
insurance eligibility from a person who had entered Korea with a sojourn status that allowed for
such eligibility and to treat them like temporary visitors just because his/her sojourn status was
changed to G-1, nor is there any reasonable ground to do so.
In addition, the G-1 sojourn status is granted to those who have a specific reason for such status.
The presence of any of the specified reasons does not automatically lead to G-1 status; rather,
the status is granted only to those approved by the Minister of Justice, and thus there is not much
room for the status to be abused. Also, even though foreigners with a G-1 status cannot be locally
provided policyholders, there is no reasonable ground to exclude them from becoming employerprovided policyholders or their dependents as there are no restrictions limiting them from doing so.
C. Recommendation regarding local governments’ administrative
order for migrant workers to get tested for COVID-19
Concluding that it is a discrimination against foreigners for certain local governments to sort
out migrant workers from the other population and have them get tested for COVID-19 by
administrative order, the Commission on March 22 recommended that the Director of the Disaster
and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, mayors and governors of local governments establish
and implement non-discriminatory quarantine policy based on the principles of human rights.
As COVID-19 spread, particularly in workplaces with a high concentration of migrant workers,
the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters established a quarantine plan
for foreign workers, based on which local governments issued administrative orders forcing
migrant workers to get COVID-19 tests. Some local governments even issued an order that made
negative COVID-19 test results mandatory for hiring migrant workers, causing disadvantages in
employment based on COVID-19 infection.
42