ASIAN WORKERS NEWS May 1, 2013
NO. 312
[AWN FOCUS]
Labor Ministry officers should also be exempted from obligatory reporting on undocumented migrants According to the recently reformed immigration regulations, some public servants such as police officers, are exempted from the obligatory report on undocumented migrants. However, The labor inspectors of the Labor Ministry and Maritime Affairs and Port Administration are not exempt, so that it may cause some human rights violations against undocumented migrants. The obligatory report by public servants means that they should report personal information immediately to the immigration office when they found an undocumented migrant according to the Article 84 of the Immigration Law. According to the immigration law which came in effect from the March 1 this year, prosecutors, police officers (including maritime police), those who are included in the exemption are public servants of elementary, middle and high schools, public servants of public medical institute and officers of the National Human Rights Commission. The problem is that the public servants of the Labor Ministry and Maritime Affairs and Port
Administration are excluded from it even though they deal with the unpaid wage for the migrant workers many times.
Actually, a Cambodian, an undocumented migrant went to Busan Bukbu Labor office with his colleague to help him get unpaid severance pay and got deported
Even if you are undocumented, you should report it when you are a victim of a crime. The
due to the report by his employer. And an Indonesian migrant who submitted a petition for the unpaid severance pay had to accept lower amount of money
International
Police
Task
Force of the Daegu Regional Police Office indicted Mr. A (male, 44), manager of a car parts manufacturer
for his severance than what he should
in
have
suspicion that he assaulted physically Miss D (female, 22) from the
been
paid
because
the
labor
inspector asked him just to call and not to visit the office.
Accordingly, NGOs for human rights of migrants said, “The law is actually bad law if it violates the basic labor rights of undocumented migrant workers and makes the labor inspectors not do their job properly, which relieve the rights of workers. As soon as possible the exemption should also be applied to public servants of the Labor Ministry and the Maritime Affairs and Port Administration.”
Daegu
without
detention,
in
Philippines using the fact that she was undocumented. She got injured, which needed about 4 weeks treatment after being beaten on the face and other places by him in an excuse that she didn’t follow his instruction. Mr. A exploited her fear of being deported from which she wouldn’t report it to the police. But the police got report on the crime. As the immigration law was reformed like the above mentioned, the police is not to report it to the immigration
On
14th
April,
Busan-Kyoungnam Myanmar
migrants
community held the <Thingyan
Water
Festival> for welcom -ing Myanmar new year
and
blessing
each other. Also Cambodia, Nepal, Thailand communities held
new
year
festivals nationwide. photo : Toe Thu Ya
office. A speaker from NGOs for human rights
of
migrants
said,
“The
undocumented should report a crime when he or she is the victim of the crime more actively because he or she is apt to be a victim of a crime. In case that he or she comes to be handed over to an immigration office, he or she should raise the issue by reporting it to an NGO nearby.