KOREA: Church Demands Government Improve Employment System For Migrants
KOREA
Church Demands Government Improve
Employment System For Migrants
SEOUL (UCAN) -- A joint pastoral letter from a bishop and priests working on issues concerning migrant workers in South Korea condemns an ongoing crackdown and urges the government to improve the employment system for foreign workers.
Bishop Peter Kang Woo-il of Cheju, president of the Korean bishops' Committee for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants, and 17 priests representing all 14 archdioceses and dioceses in South Korea issued the letter on Jan. 18. It marks the 90th World Day for Migrants and Refugees, which the Korean Church will observe on Jan. 18.
Committee secretary Father Peter Chung Byung-jo told UCA News on Jan. 13 that the letter, posted on the website of the bishops' conference, addresses the present government crackdown on "illegal" migrant workers.
According to the Employment Permit System legislated in July, migrant workers in South Korea longer than four years as of March 31, 2003, automatically became illegal. There are an estimated 80,000 migrants in this category and the government is in the process of deporting them.
As of Dec. 26, according to the Justice Ministry, the government had detained 2,612 such migrant workers and deported more than 2,100 of them.
The pastoral letter calls this campaign an "outrage against humanity." Charging that the new employment law violates migrant workers' human rights and runs counter to the spirit of the country's constitution, the latter calls on lawmakers and government officials "to overcome narrow nationalism."
The law says migrant workers who have been in the country less than three years and register at the local Labor Office with a "certificate of employment" from a business owner are allowed to work for another three years in the country. Those who have stayed between three and four years can follow this same procedure, except that they must leave the country and re-enter, with the government guaranteeing re-entry permission.
Father Chung argued that "those who have worked for more than three years are well-trained and can speak understandable Korean." As such, "it is absurd to deport these skilled workers with Korean-language capability," he said, claiming this "would cause much loss to Korean industry."
The committee official pointed out that migrant workers contribute to Korean society by working in "3D" (difficult, dirty and dangerous) industries that most Koreans stay away from. "They should be entitled to dignity and human rights like us," the priest asserted.
He said the committee invites officials from the Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Justice to its monthly meetings for priests ministering to migrant workers to keep the government officials informed of Church concerns.
Its pastoral letter is to be carried in weekly diocesan bulletins on Jan. 18. The Korean bishops have set the next-to-last Sunday in January for the local observance of the Church-declared World Day for Migrants and Refugees, observed on various days by local Catholic Churches around the world.
According to a recent government report, most migrant workers in South Korea are from Bangladesh, China, Mongolia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The Employment Permit System is in place alongside the decade-old "industrial trainee system." Under the trainee system, foreign workers can stay in Korea for three years -- one year to acquire skills and two years of regular work. However, the pay for trainees is half that for regular migrant workers, which is already less than the minimum wage for Korean workers, so many trainees leave the program and look for other jobs illegally.
Church officials say the industrial trainee system exploits cheap labor and results in migrants becoming illegal.
KO5483.1271 January 16, 2004 52 EM-lines (585 words)