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(Seoul, South Korea)—The Association for Teachers of English in Korea (ATEK) is issuing a response to reports that foreign sex crimes are on the rise and that E-2 visa regulations should be consequently tightened, suggesting that foreign English teachers could be responsible for these acts.

On October 20th the Korea Herald reported that Ministry of Justice Representative Woo Yoon-keun stated, "Along with the crime rate of foreigners, the number of sexual crimes committed by them is rapidly increasing"[…]"The police and prosecution should punish them strictly, while taking measures for prevention."

The data presented by Representative Woo shows sex crimes committed by foreigners over the past eight years, with a total of 1,289 cases. The most frequent crime committed was rape, with 600 cases, followed by 433 cases of sexual molestation and 109 cases of sexual harassment in public places.

On October 22nd the Korea Times reported that while the Ministry of Justice had stated it will ban foreigners found guilty of raping Korean children from re-entering Korea , Representative Lee Joo-young also urged the Ministry to tighten the rules on E-2 visa issuance, arguing that the current system provides too many opportunities for convicted foreigners to enter Korea.

ATEK finds it troubling that foreign teachers and E-2 visa regulations were mentioned in a discussion about the rape of Korean children by foreigners, yet no data was presented to substantiate this connection.

Immigration statistics for 2008 show that out of the 1,175,420 foreign nationals registered in Korea, 19,771 foreigners were registered as being on E-2 teaching visas. While there may be an issue with sex crimes committed by foreigners on a whole range of visas, worryingly tougher checks are being specifically suggested for foreign teachers.

If E-2 visa regulations are tightened as a consequence of rising sex crimes committed across the whole foreigners community, not just the E-2 visa demographic, this would be a grave injustice to foreign English teachers, and not just the teachers of today but the teachers of tomorrow also.

Consider this scenario:

Nine months from now there is a recent university graduate from one of the seven English speaking countries that E-2 teacher visas are currently issued to. He or she has just spent thousands of dollars and four years of their life on a university education, only to enter the world of work as one of many, at the bottom of an empty job market.

With loans to pay back but no substantial prospects for employment their future looks rather bleak. Yet maybe they have heard about the ESL job market in Korea and how they can earn a reasonable wage and enjoy a decent standard of living, while experiencing a different culture, in return for doing something positive with the next year of their life, by teaching English to Korean students.

Then imagine the disappointment and frustration they find in the reality of trying to obtain an E-2 teaching visa, since the regulations had been further tightened. With an even larger myriad of documents and checks required the whole process would have become even more expensive and time consuming.

Our would-be teacher has done nothing wrong; in fact they have never even set foot on Korean soil. The teachers who had gone before them made up a mere fraction of the overall foreign population in Korea and furthermore those teachers were for the most part responsible and law abiding individuals (statistics released by Representative Lee Gun-hyeon on September 24th revealed that only 61 E-2 visa holders were arrested in the first eight months of 2009, while statistics for the whole of 2008 and the first eight months of 2009 showed only 2 cases of foreign teachers committing 'sexual violence'.While it is not specified wehat this refers to it could possibly allude to molestation ).

Nevertheless our would-be teacher will suffer because some foreigners in Korea had committed crimes and it was decided that the English teaching community should face the consequences. Maybe the would-be teacher will find the whole process of obtaining a visa worsens their financial situation, given the time and money involved. Maybe they'll just give up on the whole teaching in Korea idea all together and as a result a class of students will be missing out on a teacher.

With regards to Representative Woo Yoon-keun's data, detailing 1,289 cases of sexual crimes committed by foreigners over the past eight years, foreign English teachers can only be held responsible for a mere 2 cases over the past two years, which does not show a substantial threat from E-2 visa holders. At the same time ATEK believes that the safety of Korean students is of paramount importance and takes this matter very seriously.

With regards to the issue of student safety ATEK President Greg Dolezal stated,

"We cannot defend or be apologists for any ATEK member who commits criminal acts, sexual or otherwise, and while we are a support group for foreign English teachers we also have the interests of those teacher's students at heart. We want to ensure schools and academies are safe environments for students to learn in."

In response to calls for a revision of the visa regulations for foreign teachers, Dolezal stated,

"We do not feel further tightening of the E-2 visa regulations will help combat the issue of sex-crimes committed by foreigners. Instead it will only hurt foreign English teachers throughout Korea and due to a lack of evidence they cannot be held to blame for the majority of these awful acts."

Speaking on behalf of our members ATEK would like to make it clear that while such reports are of concern to us, we do not feel that wider issues in the foreign community automatically implicate foreign English teachers. Therefore the E-2 visa holders, of both today and tomorrow, should not be held responsible for crimes they did not commit.

Any correspondence regarding this press release and the issues raised in it can be directed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sources:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/10/20/200910200052.asp

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/10/117_54081.html

http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=001&oid=001&aid=0002881530&

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-on-english-teacher-crime-stats.html