Following President Lee Jae-myung's remarks about reviewing the multicultural family support system, online hate speech has reportedly increased by 1.6 times. This analysis was conducted by the Kyunghyang Shinmun using the social big data analysis service 'Sumtrend' from October 7 to November 5.
The analysis revealed that after the president's comments, mentions of 'reverse discrimination' in posts related to 'multicultural families' rose from 13 to 100 per 1,000 posts, while mentions of 'privilege' increased from 1.5 to 39. References to 'foreign workers' jumped from 5 to 47. Hate speech advocating for derogatory treatment based on origin or race also surged by 1.6 times. This count includes both supportive and opposing posts as well as article shares, but excludes comments from X and articles or YouTube.
On November 3, 114 immigrant labor and human rights organizations held a press conference in front of the Blue House fountain, stating, "Since the president's remarks, blatant hate and discriminatory expressions against immigrants have spread indiscriminately in online spaces." They demanded a responsible apology and a commitment to prevent further occurrences, emphasizing that a leader's words can dismantle the minimal protections for vulnerable groups.
The controversy began on October 28 when President Lee shared a post from the online community 'FM Korea' on X, stating, "I will deeply review whether the preferential treatment system needs to be abolished, including discussions with local governments and amendments to enforcement ordinances." This was in response to criticism of the Seoul postpartum care center prioritizing multicultural family mothers alongside national merit mothers.
Priority access to public postpartum care centers is a provision that local government heads can implement under the Mother and Child Health Act enforcement ordinance. The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that none of the seven immigrant women from Vietnam, China, and Nepal were aware of this system, and among the 480 postpartum care centers nationwide, only 29 (6%) are public, with none in six metropolitan areas including Busan, Incheon, and Gwangju.
During a Cabinet meeting on November 3, President Lee stated, "While the number of priority admissions to postpartum care centers is small, there can be situations where one person's admission means another must be denied, which I find unfair." He ordered a review of the support criteria, clarifying that he does not intend to reduce support for multicultural families and labeling concerns as extreme right-wing agitation.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's '2024 National Multicultural Family Survey' (involving 16,014 households nationwide) found that 62.3% of marriage immigrants and naturalized citizens reported difficulties in life in Korea, similar to the 62.1% in 2021. In the past year, 21.5% had experience using support services, while 6.1% had used pregnancy and childbirth support services.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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