Crackdown on Undocumented Migrant Workers Leads to Tragedy

Ms. A, a Vietnamese woman in her 40s, fell to her death while trying to avoid a crackdown on undocumented migrant workers. The incident has raised concerns about the government’s policy and its impact on migrant workers.

The Immigration Office under the Ministry of Justice conducted a crackdown on undocumented migrant workers at a factory in Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk. When Ms. A heard about the crackdown, she hid in a narrow place between a cliff and behind a fence near the factory but lost her footing and fell. She was taken to the hospital but eventually died.

This incident is not an isolated one. On June 20, a pregnant Thai woman suffered an injury to her ankle bone during a crackdown on undocumented migrant workers. She was handcuffed, detained, and forced to leave the country without receiving proper treatment. On the same day, a Sri Lankan man who was avoiding a crackdown suffered a fractured leg and was left unattended for a while.

Lee Chun-ki, head of the Gyeongju Migrant Workers Center, expressed his devastation at the incident. “We have been warning for decades that factory crackdowns are bound to lead to accidents. The types of accidents are the same – broken bones while running away, death from falling, heart attack while running… Even though we know this, we continue to crack down on people too much, especially these days.”

Director Lee emphasized that the government must stop its crackdown-only policy on unregistered migrant labor. “If we leave Korea’s migrant labor system, which produces a large number of unregistered migrant workers, and try to solve it only through crackdowns, unreasonable crackdowns will continue, and accidents will inevitably occur in the meantime.”

Related Topics

• Migrant Workers
• Undocumented Workers
• Government Policy
• Human Rights