SEOUL, The state human rights watchdog said Tuesday it has asked the justice minister to add a provision to the Immigration Control Act to prohibit protective detention of children in principle.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said it has made the recommendation in response to a petition from a Mongolian man who has been forced to live with his two-year-old child in a protection facility run by an immigration office in Gyeonggi Province due to undocumented stay.

The man said he has had to stay with his child at the facility because he has no one to take care of him. He applied for a temporary release from the facility, claiming that its environment was inappropriate for a child to live in but his request was denied. He then filed a petition with the NHRCK, saying his and his son’s human rights had been violated.

The NHRCK said it rejected the man’s petition but decided to recommend an improvement of the current protective detention system because children may be negatively affected w
hen living in foreign protection facilities.

Citing a statement from the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that says children who are unaccompanied or separated from their parents should generally not be detained, the agency said the nation’s immigration act should include a principled prohibition of protective detention of children.

Source: Yonhap News Agency