The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 3 | Article ID 2383 | Mar 01, 2007

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Tragic Fire Illuminates South Korea's Treatment of MigrantWorkers

Robert Prey, S O Lee

Tragic Fire Illuminates South Korea'sTreatment of Migrant Workers

Robert Prey and Seon Ok Lee

In the early morning of February 11, around 4a.m., a devastating fire swept through thelocked cells of a migrant worker detentioncenter in the South Korean city of Yeosu, killing10 detainees and wounding many others. Thecenter staff tried to put out the flames byspraying fire extinguishers through the bars ofthe cells, but in an act that can only bedescribed as barbaric, did not unlock the celldoors to free those trapped inside, out of fearthat they would escape. Migrant workersbehind the locked doors and barred windowswere forced to breath in the toxic fumesemitted from burning mattresses. These fumeswere the cause of most of the deaths andinjuries. The cause of the fire is still underinvestigation, but the reality is that the roots ofthe tragedy lie with the Korean government'sinhumane policy towards migrant workers.

There are currently about 400,000 migrantworkers in South Korea. Close to half areundocumented. While migrant workers inSouth Korea represent over 90 countriesaround the world, most come from Asiandeveloping nations such as China, Mongolia,Vietnam, the Phil ippines, Indonesia,Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan andBurma. There are also small communities ofmigrant workers from African countries. Themajority works in jobs classified as low-skilledwork: generally manufacturing jobs at smalland medium-sized factories, construction work,

and in the irregular service industry. About onethird of all migrant workers in South Korea arewomen and their numbers are increasing. Mostmigrant women are employed in manufacturingand the service sector with some employed insex-related industries. Women face all of thebarriers faced by male migrant workers plusthe added barrier of gender discrimination,including considerably lower wages for equalwork, a situation that extends to the entirerange of low-level service or factory jobs, notjust to migrant women.

Like their counterparts in many other labor-importing countries around the world, migrantworkers in Korea experience inhumanetreatment, unsafe working environments andlow and unpaid wages. But there are also anumber of specific features of the SouthKorean system. Migrants in Korea have comeeither as "Industrial Trainees" or under thegovernment's Employment Permit System(EPS), which places them at specific factoriesand prohibits them from freely moving to otherjobs without specific permission from theiremployer. EPS is definitely an improvementover the former Industrial Trainee System(ITS), which as of January 2007, is in theprocess of being phased out. Under the ITS,migrant workers were considered to be‘student trainees’ rather than laborers,meaning that they were not protected underKorea’s Labor Standards Act. The KoreanFederation of Small and Medium Business(KFSM), was delegated the responsibility ofmanaging this system and providing servicesfor migrants. While KFSM collected the duespaid by each migrant worker to their workplacesupervisor, the Federation provided little in the

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way of services. Civil society groups grewincreasingly critical of the KFSM and thetrainee system. Under ITS, migrants faceddraconian levels of control by employers. Alltrainees stayed in company dormitories withemployers often not allowing trainees to gooutside to prevent workers from creatingnetworks with other migrants and fromreceiving beneficial information from NGOs.Workers’ passports were also often held byemployers in order to prevent trainees fromrunning away from the factory.

Migrant Trade Union Workers and Supporters

In order to respond to the growing criticism,and the increasing number of migrants fleeingtheir assigned workplaces, the governmentpushed for the enacting of the EmploymentPermit System (EPS). The EPS was heavilyopposed by the KFSM, which would losemanagement control and the right to collectdues, and by employers who would now have toabide by the laws of the Korean LaborStandards Act. Korean NGOs, after some time,decided to support EPS, as the new systemprovided workers with greater protection thandid the ITS, which many civil society groupsregarded as akin to a modern form of slavery.

However EPS has not cured many of thefundamental systemic problems plaguingmigrant labor in Korea. Recent research

conducted by Amnesty International shows thatby having little chance of changing jobs underEPS, migrants are seriously hindered in theirability to lodge complaints about abusesbecause they fear losing their jobs byantagonizing their employers. A worker wholoses his or her job effectively loses the legalstatus to work in South Korea. There are alsonumerous reports of migrant workers heldcaptive by employers who have seized theirofficial documents, including passports andwork permits in order to prevent the workersfrom looking for jobs elsewhere.Under the Employment Permit System, migrantworkers are given one-year contracts, whichcan be renewed annually for a maximum ofthree years. After 3 years, a migrant worker isrequired to return to his or her home country.While these workers are technically allowed toapply to return to Korea afterwards, fewmigrants actually follow through on this due tothe h igh cost o f broker fees and thecomplicated procedures that must be followedin order to legally return. Most workers choose- or rather are forced - to stay longer in Koreaand become 'undocumented' after 3 yearsbecause they have not made enough money topay off the huge debts accumulated from thehigh, black market application fees necessaryto gain a job in the first place.

Once in Korea, many migrants find that thejobs they are assigned to are very differentfrom those they were promised and are moredangerous with less pay than expected. Theblame for this usually lies in combination withthe brokers in a migrant worker’s homecountry who exaggerate the kind of jobsavailable in Korea, and with Korean employerswho provide l i tt le in the way of priorinformation to workers. As they are essentially‘tied’ to their workplace for the duration oftheir stay, many workers eventually flee theirlegal employment and going to work asundocumented migrant workers. This is not achoice but a necessity for a worker who needsto earn enough money to pay off debts and

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support family members in his or her homecountry.

Asian Rights interviews migrant workers tv

The Korean government, in an attempt todiminish the number of undocumentedmigrants, has responded to this situation with abrutal crackdown. Migrant workers arefrequently injured and even killed in surpriseimmigration raids. Moreover, once caught, theyface brutal conditions and human rights abusesin detention centers like the one in Yeosu.

The migrants held at the Yeosu detentioncenter came from a number of Asian laborexporting countries, but nine of the 10 killed inthe fire were Chinese workers. The tenth was aUzbek national. Currently, 15 of the detaineesstill suffering from injuries sustained duringthe fire are being kept in three separatehospitals in the city of Yeosu. The inhumanetreatment of the detained migrant workerscontinued after the fire. Three injured migrantswere handcuffed to hospital beds. In addition,the Korean government refused to revealinformation about the incident to the bereavedfamilies of the victims and to Korean civilsociety organizations.Labor and human rights organizations havecondemned the South Korean government forits responsibility in causing the tragedy and itsinhumane handling of the matter. Korean civil

society and migrant worker organizations haveformed a strong joint response to these events.On February 25, a Joint Committee comprisedof over 60 human rights, labor, civic, andreligious organizations held a rally in centralSeoul attended by over 1000 organizationmembers and migrant workers. The protesterscalled on the government to provide adequatemedical treatment and compensation to victimsof the fire, to stop the violent crackdownagainst migrant workers, and to close allforeigner detention centers. Using this event topoint out the broader structural issues thathelped cause the tragedy, the Joint Committeecalled for the legalization and granting of fulllabor rights to all migrant workers residing inKorea, as a way to fundamentally solve theillegal migrant problem.

Migrant workers February 25 rally protestscrackdown

The demonstration on February 25th wascompletely barricaded by dozens of policebuses. The police had denied a permit for astreet march after the rally. But demonstratorsrefused to accept the prohibition. After therally migrant workers and supporters pushedpast riot police and marched through centralSeoul.

One victim of the fire, Mr. W, told the rally, "Idon't know how the fire started, but as theguards at the detention center turned awayfrom our cries to open the doors, it turned into

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hell itself. Even though we may be illegalmigrant workers, how could they treat us thatway if they saw us as human beings?"A member of a Burmese (Myanmar) communityorganization told the rally, "Although thedemocratization of South Korea is well knownthroughout Asia, since we have come here wehaven't felt this democratization because of thecolor of our skin."

The February 25 rally

The Korean government is being criticized onseveral fronts. The families of the injured anddead were only contacted several days after thefire, the autopsies were conducted withoutrelatives' consent, and the government failed tooffer translation to the bereaved families. Thegovernment also sent 28 migrant workersjudged to have "no injuries" to anotherdetention center without consideration of thepsychological damage they might have incurredand then on February 23rd forcibly deported 17of these 28. The 17 were sent back to theircountries without medical treatment orcompensation."Are these the measures to ensure such atragedy will not occur again taken by agovernment that really feels a sense ofresponsibility?" the Joint Committee asked in astatement released at the rally on February25th. "If the government really feels a sense ofresponsibility it must pay reparations to the 17who were deported immediately!" Finally, theJoint Committee claimed, "If the governmentseriously planned to deal with the situation and

prevent further tragedies like this one fromoccurring it would immediately close all theinhumane detention centers, stop the man-hunting crackdown and legalize all migrantworkers. These measures would be a realbeginning to truly solving the problem."Of course, the situation of migrant workers inKorea is familiar throughout the developedworld and is not simply a problem limited to theSouth Korean government. From the US-Mexico border to 'Fortress Europe', repressionof migration doesn't stop the movement ofdesperate migrants, but it does make themmore easily exploitable.

Many voices over the past few weeks haveexpressed outrage that a developed democracylike South Korea could deal with its migrantworkforce in such a barbarous manner.However, this is not simply a problem of theKorean government failing in its duty to upholdits status as a "model Asian democracy".Instead it is precisely South Korea's position asan industrial nation which allows it to benefitfrom the desperation of migrants from poorercountries. Moreover, there is implicit popularsupport for the view that if South Korea'seconomy is to survive in its precarious positionbetween a high-tech Japan and a low-wageindustrial China, it must maintain an economywith two faces; the globally recognized face ofits high-tech giants such as Samsung and LG,and somewhere in the shadows, the smallfactories and contractors surviving on thesweat of cheap migrant labor. This is whatmakes the recent horrific fire at the YeosuDetention Center more than just a tragedy ofgovernment mismanagement but a societalproblem as well as an international problem,and a poignant symptom of global capitalism.

Robert Prey works with the Migrant WorkersTelevision Station (MWTV) in Seoul, SouthKorea. Seon Ok Lee is a researcher at theAnsan Migrant Workers Center in Ansan City,South Korea.

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They wrote this article for Japan Focus. PostedMarch 15, 2006.

Notes

[1] South Korea does not permit legal stays ofover 5 years due to a law which requires theKorean government to give the right ofpermanent residence to all persons who residelegally in Korea for 5 years. (This Act was

initially created for overseas Chinese who arethe oldest foreign residents in Korea).

[2] Many brokers mediate between thegovernment and migrant job applicants. Thec o s t o f a d m i s s i o n i s h i g h , a n d t h eadministrative difficulty is great. A 2005 FieldSurvey Report by the Korean Ministry of Laborfound that the cost for a Vietnamese migrant togain admission into South Korea was over fivetimes higher than the formal application feeunder the EPS system.