JINCHEON, South Korea -- Sporting white Adidas uniforms, a group of recently arrived Afghan children practiced taekwondo kicks on the grounds of a South Korean government agency. Taking advantage of last week's warm autumn sun, a father kicked a soccer ball with his son on the other side of the field.

"I am happy to practice taekwondo with no hijab," a 13-year-old girl said through a translator, asking not to be named. "There were no freedoms for girls in my home country. But here I can learn freely."

The girl is one of 391 Afghans -- employees of the South Korean embassy, related organizations and their family members -- evacuated by Seoul two months ago under the code name "miracle."

While the girl and her friends were excited to start new lives with dreams of becoming soccer players or doctors, their parents expressed concerns about how to make their ends meet after their six-month training period expires.

"We all know that settling down in Korea is not easy for a person who grew up in a different country," said a 36-year-old refugee who had worked for a South Korean agency in Afghanistan. "If we work hard here, step by step we can solve all the problems that we will face in the future. We know that it will not be easy, but we will do our best to settle down properly in South Korea."

The refugees said that it was "horrible" experience to get out of their home country, and they risked their lives and those of their children to escape.

Ha Yong-kook, a director at South Korea's Justice Ministry, said that the government is providing Korean language and other basic education programs for the "special contributors" to help them make lives in the country.

"All of adults completed their Korean language program. They learned Korean alphabets and can say hello in Korean," Ha said in a briefing.

Ha said the refugees now have F-1 temporary resident visas, but will be given F-2 permanent resident visas later as the ministry is revising related regulations to guarantee their stay. "There's no problem to living here with the visa," Ha said.

Family members of some 390 Afghans, who were airlifted from Kabul to South Korea at a playground on Oct. 13 in Jincheon-gun, South Korea.   © Getty Images

However, lawyers representing asylum seekers say that the government is trying to avoid criticism by calling them "special contributors" as the public are negative to accept refugees.

"It is against the humanitarian value of the Refugee Convention to select 'special contributors,'" Advocates for Public Interest Law, or APIL, a non-profit organization working for asylum seekers in the country, said in a statement. "South Korea has benefited from economic gains by joining advanced countries, but has been free riding by avoiding its roles as part of the international community."

APIL said the government learned a lesson in 2018 when some Koreans expressed their hatred against more than 500 Yemeni refugees who came to Jeju Island to escape from the civil war at home. More than 710,000 people filed a petition with the presidential Blue House not to accept them.

South Korea accepted 55 refugees, or 0.4% of 6,684 applicants, last year, according to the ministry, showing its unwillingness to recognize them. The Afghan arrivals are lucky comparing to other asylum seekers, but they also face a tough reality.

Yoon Yeon-han, head of the Multicultural Family Center in Cheonan, a city south of Seoul, said the refugees showed great interest in income, jobs and housing prices in South Korea.

Yoon, who teaches them about Korean society and culture, including financial, consumer and gender equality policies, said in the briefing that "husbands usually ask me about wages, jobs and apartment prices, while wives are interested in childcare policy."

The Justice Ministry said it will consider paying subsidies to help them settle down in the country when they leave the center, but it did not disclose how much it will be. In comparison, the government pays 24 million won ($20,300) of settlement subsidies for a North Korean defector, according to the Unification Ministry.

Meanwhile, the Afghan children seemed happy enough just to be playing sport.

"I did not know that South Korea was such a developed country," a 15-year-old Afghan boy said. "I want to live here permanently and become a football player."