Early in the morning on Dec. 23, four Burmese families finally arrived at South Korea’s major airport, looking nervous yet excited. Amid warm welcome from government officials and U.N. agencies, they set foot for the first time in the country that they would now can call home.

The 22 Burmese people, who had spent a decade at a refugee camp in Thailand, were the first batch of refugees relocated in Korea as part of the U.N.-led refugee resettlement program.

Under its independent Refugee Act, Korea joined the scheme in 2013 to share the international responsibility to protect the forcibly displaced. 

Park Mi-hyung, head of the International Organization for Migration’s Seoul Office, said that witnessing the arrival of the refugees was truly moving, as it meant that yearlong efforts by her team, the Justice Ministry and refugee aid groups were finally paying off.

“The IOM’s job was to prepare refugees in Myanmar to be ready for relocation by checking their health conditions and teaching them about Korea, Korean culture and its language,” Park said in an interview with The Korea Herald at her office in central Seoul.

While the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees selects refugees to be resettled in a third country, the IOM focuses on preparing them to be safely transported and relocated.

“They safely arrived. Now, what is more important is to help the first group of resettlement refugees quickly adapt to life in Korea to continue the momentum,” said Park, who took office in 2013 after working for an international relief group for five years in Africa.

“For example, the Korean way of education does not work for refugees. When giving language training to them at refugee support center, the process needs to become more participatory so that they can be engaged in classes,” she said in reference to one of the policy recommendations her team had suggested to Korean authorities.

“When they acquire the language ability, they are able to work. When they are able to work, they can stand on their own feet. That way, they can naturally be assimilated into Korean society,” she said. “For rapid integration, I suggest that the government give refugees more chances to go outside the refugee help center, interact with locals, look for jobs and prepare for their own lives.”

The IOM was founded in 1951 to assist in the resettlement of Europeans displaced in the aftermath of World War II. It took the lead in promoting humane migration, curbing human trafficking, resettling refugees and providing humanitarian assistance. Korea became a member of the organization in 1988.

The importance of IOM’s efforts has been highlighted more than ever in recent years, with millions of people fleeing war-stricken countries and humanitarian crises in Africa and the Middle East.

According to U.N. data, there were 244 million people living outside their country of birth in 2015, the highest figure ever recorded and an increase of 71 million people since 2000. The IOM reported that a total of 5,411 migrants were dead or missing on migratory routes in 2015, with 3,770 of them having died while crossing the Mediterranean.

The IOM’s Korea office opened in 2007 on the back of the rising number of migrant workers here. It raises funds for intergovernmental organization's various projects. One of its main tasks is also to broaden awareness toward migrants through events and seminars.

One worrying phenomenon is rising negative sentiments among the public toward asylum seekers and migrants here and abroad, said Park. This has been made worse by the prolonged economic slump and series of terrorist attacks overseas, most recently in Brussels.

“It is easy to blame refugees and migrants for problems we are facing in difficult times,” Park said. “The whole humanity seems to be going backward. Wrong information is shared in the media, which gives rise to extremists and creates the wrong assumption that refugees cause harm to countries.”

A recent poll by Gallup Korea on 1,500 Koreans showed that they are somewhat hostile to foreign workers who settle here.

Fifty-four percent of the respondents viewed foreign workers’ migration here as “bad,” much higher than the average of 39 percent across 69 countries.

Currently, the number of migrants in the nation stands at 1.79 million.

“The assumption leads to negative public opinion, which prompts lawmakers to draw policies reducing room for safe and legal migration,” she said. “The lack of legal pathway drives migrants into the hands of smugglers and traffickers.”

Park also pointed out that the refugee application process should help to identify and protect refugees and not focus on screening out and deporting them.

“It should be more inclusive than exclusive,” she said. “If there are many people abusing the refugee system to extend their stay here, the Korean government might have to rethink its immigration and labor policies.”

Park said that migrants and refugees are not a burden to society. They can contribute a great deal to an advanced country like South Korea, both economically and socially.

“We first need to invest, but once they are integrated well, they can be hardworking citizens filling jobs left vacant by locals in the face of the shrinking population and low fertility rate,” she said. “Also, they bring diversity to the society. Isn’t that what a creative economy is about?”

According to the International Monetary Fund, the influx of refugees into Europe is likely to spur economic growth in the short term. If refugees are well integrated into the job market in the long term, gross domestic product could be 0.25 percent higher for the EU as a whole by 2020, the IMF estimated.

“It is already a globalized world. It is an irreversible flow that people move around the world and get mixed,” she said. “What I can say for sure is that fences and walls cannot stop people from moving.”

“If so, wouldn’t it be better for Korea to take advantage of the influx of migrants and proactively adopt policies to embrace and integrate them into society?” she said. “It is our loss if we do it too late.”

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)