Topic ?As of now, if a Korean wants to become a citizen of another country he or she must forfeit their Korean citizenship. Should Koreans be granted dual-citizenship to foreign countries, or is the system fine the way it is? Explain.


There has been an argument regarding the issue whether dual-citizenship should be allowed or not. Some people maintain that allowing people to have dual-citizenship is needed for those who want to study second language. But other say it shouldn’t be allowed because of those who avoid doing their mandatory military service. I agree with this view because men who have dual-citizenship will obviously avoid going to the army and it is not fair for all people at all.

We all know that Korea is divided in half and we really need young men to defend our country from the North. That is why all men who reached the age of 21 have to go to the army and defend the country for 2 and a half years. However, most of people do not want to do that just because army training is usually harsh and difficult. Thus, if dual-citizenship were allowed, people would flee to another country to avoid doing their military services. So government didn’t allow people to have dual-citizenship to deal with this problem. In spite of this law, many people now even forfeit their Korean citizenship just to avid going to the army. This is ridiculous.

Having dual-citizenship is not easy at all. It usually costs a lot of money to get them. So, people who have dual-citizenship are be rich or his or her parents might be. These days, many young rich men who have dual-citizenship tend to forfeit their Korean citizenship before they reach the age of 21 to avoid doing their mandatory military service. Hence, people who don’t have a lot of money would take over all the work defending our country. That is why it would be really unfair for those who cannot afford to have dual-citizenship.

Again, defending the truce line in Korea is critical and because of those who forfeit their Korean citizenship South Korea lacks young men to defend our country. To prevent this, recently, government have informed that all men who have dual-citizenship can forfeit one of their citizenship AFTER they complete the mandatory military service. Government said this law would be applied on May 2005, and more than a thousand people forfeited their Korean citizenship before May. They are being too selfish and they need to think more of Korea.