❙Congratulatory Speech❙
Seoul International Conference against
Human Trafficking in Migrant Women
Greetings to all the participants of the Seoul International Conference against Human
Trafficking in Migrant Women. I am Jin-Young, Lawmaker of Seoul Yong-San District.
I would like to congratulate on the hosting of the Seoul International Conference against
Human Trafficking in Migrant Women and to applaud Chairperson Hyun Byung-Chul,
Secretary-General Kim Ok-Shin and other members of the National Human Rights
Commission of Korea who always work hard for a more democratic society by protecting
and promoting fundamental inviolable human rights of each individual and who have done
a great job preparing for the conference.
Also, I would like extend my warm gratitude to today’s key note speaker Ms. Joy Ngozi
Ezeilo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking of Persons and all the other experts from
home and abroad for your presence today.
The world is entering into a multicultural age with ever-increasing transnational exchange
of people. Koreais not an exception with increasing number of foreign residents. Due to
weak legal and institutional system for such migrants, there are a large number of human
rights violations around the world –one of which is human trafficking of the relatively
weak, the women. The method of crime has become more sophisticated and complex as it
involves new medium such as the internet, and starts to show characteristics of large-scale
organized crime involving both domestic and international network.
In Korea, international marriage and entertainer’s visa are often used as a tool for human
trafficking thereby violating human rights of a large number of migrant women.
I hope this conference can contribute finding ways to eradicate human trafficking on
migrant women and to protect the victims by identifying cooperative measures between
NGO, governments and national human rights agencies.