i'm guessing that you didn't know that the republic of korea (south korea) became the first labor-importing country in asia to seek to protect the rights of migrant workers when it introduced the act concerning the employment of migrant workers (eps act) in august 2003...despite the introduction of the eps act, migrant workers, both regular and irregular, continue to face discrimination in the work place and abuse by employers and state officials...they are vulnerable to a gamut of human rights abuses including withholding of payment, confiscation of identity documents, including passports, visa papers and identity cards, verbal and physical abuse and denial of access to health insurance and medical attention...migrant workers are typically engaged in dirty, dangerous and difficult work for which they receive little or no training and face discrimination in wages compared to south korean nationals...
women, who constitute roughly one-third of all migrant workers in south korea, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation such as discrimination in wages compared to their male counterparts, sexual harassment and violence...lack of mandatory health insurance affects women migrant workers who may become pregnant but cannot afford to pay for appropriate treatment or regular check-ups...reports suggest that even after miscarriages many migrant women continue to undertake the same heavy workload they did before becoming pregnant...many women who have experienced sexual violence claim that they were threatened by their employers with forcible return to their home country if they reported the incident...
you can add your voice to the thousands who oppose such systematic mistreatment...
migrant workers in south korea often work long hours on machinery with little or no training...others work with dangerous chemicals with inadequate protective equipment or safety training...when workplace accidents happen many migrant workers are reported to have received inadequate medical treatment and compensation...in some cases, employers of injured workers have refused to renew contracts, thereby denying them the right to stay in the country legally; compelling many of them into an irregular status...the ministry of labor has stated that all migrant workers, including irregular workers, are eligible to benefit from the industrial accident compensation scheme however this right has been denied in many cases...
since november 2003, the south korean government has implemented a series of crack-downs to arrest, detain and deport all irregular migrant workers...amnesty international has received persistent reports of poor conditions below the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners...there are also reports of abuse by security personnel in detention facilities used to detain migrant workers pending deportation...amnesty international delegates found male guards watching closed circuit television that monitored women detainees and a nationwide survey in 2006 found that 5% of female detainees claimed to have been sexually abused by immigration authorities during body searches...the average length of detention of migrant workers appears to be prolonged, which in many cases makes this detention arbitrary with many being detained for much longer than the legally permissible 20 days...hygiene conditions and ventilation are very poor and many detainees are kept in spaces much smaller than the 6.1m2 decreed by the ministry of justice in 2006...
these poor conditions became tragically evident in a recent (12 february 2007) fatal fire at the yeosu detention center that left 10 dead and around 17 others injured...when the fire broke out the fire alarm system failed, the sprinkler system did not work, there were fewer guards on duty than required in law and the guard closest to respond to the fire did not possess a key to open the cells for the detainees...the fire raises serious concerns regarding the safety of other detention facilities throughout south korea...it is feared that the investigation into the fire is not addressing the lack of legal safeguards to ensure the installment and enforcement of full health and safety measures in all detention centers and means of enforcement, including the number of guards on duty and training of all staff in health and safety procedures...
send a message to the minister of justice highlighting your concerns regarding the treatment of migrant workers in south korea, in particular the conditions in detention facilities used to detain migrant workers pending deportation...
peace out <3
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