ASIAN WORKERS NEWS December 30, 2012
NO. 308
[AWN FOCUS]
Migrant Workers' Wish List to the President-elect
ASIAN WORKERS NEWS
The one who wants to get a new job
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2
December 30, 2012
The night crackdown, the internal practice of the immigration bureau, became a controversial issue after an undocumented migrant died from falling while running away on the 18th of November in Busan. The Busan and Kyoungnam common counter-measure association for migrants’ human rights including “Solidarity with Migrants” had a protesting assembly in front of Busan Immigration Office located in Chungang, Chungu, Busan on the 20th of November against the death. On the assembly, they asked for the end of the violent crackdown practice, improvement of the system and the apology from the Agency. Mr.S(33), an Indonesian who worked for a manufacturing company in Kijang, Busan fell down from 8m high retaining wall while running away from the crackdown when he was at nightwork. The immigration officers came at 9:10 on the 12th of November. Mr. S was found 40 to 50 minutes after that by his colleagues and then moved to a hospital for medical treatment, but he died in the morning on the 18th of December. The Common Association for Migrants criticized that the death is caused by crackdown of the immigration because they didn’t take enough caution for safety. The assembly participants said, “there were 13 immigration staffs for crackdown but no one tooke any safety measure for the retaining wall. They must have been able to predict that they might run away to the wall. Therefore we cannot blame them for their responsibility. They just left without checking if there was an accident, even though there was someone missing. They went there to arrest 4 people, but they left with just 1 person arrested. Therefore it is suspicious that they left in a hurry to avoid the responsibility for the accident intentionally. Kim Gru, the counseling director of ‘Solidarity with Migrants’ said, “We submitted a petition to the Human Rights Commission after defining this event as a human rights violation by the Governmental Organization. We are going to discuss measures in order to make the Government take the responsibility such as a lawsuit for compensation against the Government after his family arrives in Korea." The Busan Immigration Office said about this, “We had to crackdown the workplace at night because we were informed that the undocumented workers work only at night. We are also sorry for the tragedy but we followed the legal procedures lawfully such as reporting the crackdown to the employer.” <November 21, 2012 The Busan Ilbo>
8 years ago, Ms.M came to Korea by marrying a Korean and was living happily with a daughter(6) and a
son(2). In April of last year, she got the Korean nationality and a Korean name. However, her life with a big dream couldn’t go on longer. She got conflicted with her husband more frequently because of verbal communication and the cultural difference. She sometimes got beaten by her husband (He is 20 years older than her) and had some trouble with the family members of her husband. In 2004 when she was 20 years old, she heard and talked about the divorce with her husband who met her in Vietnam through a match-making agency. Although she started talking about the divorce, her husband submitted the file to the court in January this year. She jumped from the 18th floor of the apartment where she had lived with the two children, leaving a will in Vietnamese, at 11:07 am on Jan. 23. They were found dead on the floor bed behind the apartment by a resident living in the apartment (43). On her will left in the living room, titled “the last letter of a mother and her two children”, she wrote “I wanted to live, making a happy family, but.. I am so sorry to my husband and parents”. According to the will, she was so afraid of losing her custody of their children to commit suicide. The police said, “There seem to be lots of conflict between them because it was written on the will that her husband hit her. And also there were many worries due to the cultural differences. It’s too bad that she died with their children.” <November 23, 2012 The Hankyoreh>
On Dec. 18, 1990, ‘International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families’ was adopted by UN. The day is settled down as a day for migrant workers, their families and NGOs for migrants to urge each government to ratify the convention. Total 45 countries have ratified it so far including Bangladesh which ratified this convention on Nov. 4, 2011 and 14 countries signed on the convention, which is considered as an international agreement. Korea hasn’t ratified yet. As you can see the title, “International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families” is aimed to protect their rights as active participants in a society. It’s meaningful because it also states the protection of their families. The convention sees migrant workers as active members of a society, not just as manpower. For the memory of the day, the assembly to urge the Korean Government to ratify the convention and improve the conditions for human rights and the labor rights of migrant workers. AWN
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Kim So-ryoung Jung Kook-hee, Kim So-ryoung Lim A-yeong, Danny Ramos Guerra, Toe Thu Ya
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Solidarity with Migrants
(사)이주민과 함께