Migrant workers deserve more humane treatment
"A frog does not remember when it was a tadpole," an old Korean saying goes.
Whenever Koreans talk about their country's shift from a beggar to a donor in just two generations, they don't forget to mention workers sent to Germany in the 1960s. And how then President Park Chung-hee cried with Korean miners and nurses who toiled in the European country.
Korea has now become like Germany, at least for about 600,000 migrant workers, mainly from Southeast Asia. However, its treatment of these guest workers is discriminatory at best and inhumane at worst.
Nothing shows this better than a Thai worker's recent death.
Prawa Seningmunchu, 67, was found dead on a hill in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province last Saturday. He had worked at a nearby pig farm for 10 years. He raised about 1,000 pigs almost by himself, cleaning up the pig excrement and helping to birth piglets. His cramped lodging was inside the pigsty, where visitors could hardly breathe due to the smell. Police suspect long, hard work in a harsh environment might have caused his death. The employer did not report his death but dumped the body using a tractor, fearing punishment for "hiring an illegal alien."
In 2020, a Cambodian woman died at a greenhouse due to hypothermia. Last month, a Thai couple was found dead, poisoned by carbon monoxide while sleeping by a wood fire in a room with no heating. Even in cases like these, employers deduct up to 300,000 won ($230) from salaries "for accommodation."
According to civic groups helping migrant workers, verbal and physical abuse are common. Women live with a constant fear of sexual assault. Many don't dream of overtime wages or severance pay. After all, changing workplaces is next to impossible as it requires employers' consent under the Employment Permit System (EPS), which volunteers call "modern-day slavery," favoring employers lopsidedly.
Behind all this inhumane treatment is the consciousness of giving benefits. The reality is the opposite, however. These migrant workers do things few Koreans would, especially at low wages. Koreans can hardly eat their favorite grilled pork belly or raw fish wrapped with lettuce or sesame leaves without migrant workers. These foreigners are neither beneficiaries nor slaves but benefactors.
Under the EPS, migrant workers can stay in Korea for a maximum of four years and 10 months. That's two months shy of the five years required to apply for permanent residency. Korea needs the labor but will not accept them as members of its society. In 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled the system that prohibits migrant workers' change of workplace to be "constitutional" in principle. The tribunal stressed the need to manage migrant workers more efficiently amid the sharp increase of illegal sojourners. That violated international human rights norms and ran counter to the constitutional value of "respecting human dignity."
It is a small surprise then that Korea ratified all nine core conventions of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights except one ― the International Convention on Migrant Workers. Can Korea protest discrimination in the West or Japan?
The Yoon Suk Yeol administration plans to increase the inflow of migrant workers from 69,000 to 110,000 this year. But the plan only talks about how to make them work more for an extended period. There are no details to improve the working environment, including accommodation. "The government only sends administrative orders without confirming their implementation," said Udaya Lai, head of the migrant workers' union.
No country needs foreign labor more badly than Korea, with the lowest birth rate and fastest population aging worldwide. The massive influx of foreigners will inevitably cause some social conflicts. Still, the resultant diversity can help grow this society and its economy.
It depends on how this country can shed its image of being the "Republic of Exploitation" and help realize the Korean dream. We hope 2023 will be the first year to move in that direction.
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