"Helped South Korea, Persecuted by Taliban"... Afghan Children Granted Refugee Status by Court

Adult Children of Special Contributors Regain Rights in Court
Immigration Office's "Insufficient Grounds" Decision Overturned

Adult children of Afghan special contributors who cooperated with South Korea but were denied refugee status in the country filed a lawsuit against immigration authorities and won the case.

As a result of a lawsuit filed against immigration authorities by adult children of Afghan special contributors who cooperated with South Korea, after being denied refugee status in the country, the court ruled in their favor (photo is for illustrative purposes and unrelated to the article). Photo by Joint Press Corps

According to the legal community on September 28, Judge Jang Wooyoung of the Incheon District Court's Administrative Division 2 ruled in favor of two Afghan men in their 20s, identified as A and B, in their lawsuit seeking to overturn the Incheon Immigration Office’s decision to deny them refugee status.

A and B entered South Korea in the fall of 2022 on short-term visit (C-3) or general training (D-4) visas and applied for refugee status the following year, citing the risk of persecution by the Taliban. They argued that they were at risk due to their father's past cooperation with the South Korean government.

A's father worked at a South Korean vocational training center and a government-affiliated educational institution in Afghanistan for six years starting in 2010. In addition, A's sibling participated in projects for internal security in the Afghan military, such as biometric registration, and is also known to have worked for government-affiliated agencies in the past.

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, the South Korean government conducted a special evacuation operation to bring the parents and underage siblings of these contributors to Korea, granting them "special contributor" residency status. However, A and B, who were adults at the time, were excluded from this operation.

After entering Korea, they applied for refugee status, but immigration authorities rejected their applications, stating that the risk of persecution did not meet the criteria for recognition under the Refugee Convention, and only allowed them to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds.

However, the court reached a different conclusion. The court stated, "There is sufficient possibility that they could be persecuted by the Taliban due to their political beliefs or their cooperation with the previous government," and ruled that "denying them refugee status is unlawful, given that they cannot receive protection from their home government."

Previously, in July, the Administrative Division 1 of the Seoul High Court’s Incheon Branch also ruled in favor of two other adult children of Afghan special contributors in a similar case, both in the first trial and on appeal. In that case, their father had worked at the South Korean embassy for an extended period, and they argued for refugee status based on the potential for Taliban retaliation.