Tears and joy: Afghan refugees rebuild lives in South Korea a year after Taliban takeover

Record ID: 1686417

  • Title: Tears and joy: Afghan refugees rebuild lives in South Korea a year after Taliban takeover
  • Date: 26th August 2022
  • Summary: INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA (FILE - AUGUST 26, 2021) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF AFGHAN EVACUEES COMING OUT OF THE ARRIVAL GATE / STAFF WEARING PROTECTIVE SUITS GIVING DIRECTIONS VARIOUS OF EVACUEES WALKING OUT OF THE AIRPORT BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2022 07:59
  • Keywords: Afghanistan South Korea Taliban evacuee refugee
  • Location: YONGIN, INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA
  • City: YONGIN, INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Conflicts/War/Peace,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA002051925082022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PLEASE REFER TO 0100-AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT/COUNTRY FILE SENT ON AUGUST 14, 2022 FOR FILE MATERIAL OF AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT
    A year after nearly 400 Afghan refugees fled the Taliban takeover of their homeland to settle in South Korea, many have swapped white-collar dreams for factory jobs, amid a struggle with language and cultural challenges as they build their new lives.
    South Korea helped to evacuate Afghan families as Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, permitting them long-term stays in return for having worked on its projects in the war-ravaged mountainous nation.
    "It's so hard to lose everything. Especially your homeland," Shahpoor Ahmad Azimi, 38, tearfully told Reuters just hours before he was due to begin his 12-hour overnight shift at a plastic factory in Yongin, south of Seoul, the capital.
    A journalism graduate of the elite Kabul University, who formerly worked with a Korean provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, Azimi now packs plastic products.
    Despite the career switch, the job feeds his family, Azimi said, expressing gratitude to South Korea for helping them escape the Taliban which curbed the rights of women and girls, in particular after it toppled the Western-backed government.
    "My daughter can't go to outside alone in Afghanistan, can't go to school alone," Azimi added. "But here, we never think about (that) when they go out alone."
    However, cultural differences are sometimes evident in a country where many still believe in ethnic homogeneity. Government figures show only 3.2% of South Korea's total population in 2021 were foreigners.
    Some Korean parents also held a protest against the entry of Afghan children in local schools when they first arrived last year.
    Azimi described the reaction of the parents as "normal in every country". People back home in Afghanistan were sometimes wary about visitors from different provinces too, he said.
    The language barrier is also shaping up to be the single biggest hurdle on the way to resettlement, with Azimi struggling to find the right words to explain himself to his colleagues at work daily.
    While the government offers language classes for the refugees, few of those working shifts can find the time to attend.
    "You see our schedule down there, so there's no time for learn," said Rahmatullah Rahmat, a former translator who now works with Azimi, pointing to a duty roster at the factory. "That's the most difficult."
    Many of the evacuated Afghans in South Korea were office workers like Azimi, but most had to switch professions to find employment, government data shows. 72 Afghan refugees had found jobs in manufacturing and shipbuilding, while 15 had quit, the data shows.
    Of 27 individuals with backgrounds in medical services, just two were able to find jobs in the same sector. Now, the government is reviewing the matter of acknowledging the licences from, and the experience amassed, in their home country, said the official of a government support group.
    Despite the host of concerns, Azimi said he had no plan to return to Afghanistan in the near future, for the well-being of his children, among other reasons.
    Now, he added, he "never" thinks about the past and the life he had in Afghanistan, preferring to focus on his new start.
    (Production: Daewoung Kim, Hyunyoung Yi)
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