A migrant workers advocacy group called for an end to the government’s “inhumane” crackdown on unregistered foreign workers in Seoul on Thursday, following the government’s announcement to reduce the rate of illegal migrants to below 10 percent by 2018.

An association of some 60 lawyers, foreigners and labor rights groups urged the government to revise the Employment Permit System to curb illegal migration in a press conference held in front of the immigration building in western Seoul. “Unregistered migrant workers might not have legitimate visas to stay here, but that does not mean that they should put up with such inhumane treatment and human rights violations,” the group said. “They are not criminals, but they are laborers doing the most difficult jobs in the nation to support our economy.”

The Justice Ministry had earlier unveiled a plan to beef up prescreening before issuing visas to foreign workers and launched an intensive clampdown on unregistered migrant workers for 20 weeks starting in April.

Currently, there are 1.9 million migrants in Korea, accounting for 3.7 percent of the entire population. The Justice Ministry claims that 11.3 percent of the total foreign population is unregistered.

The migrant advocacy group estimated that to date more than 30 migrant workers have died during the deportation and crackdown process carried out by immigration officers. They accused the officers of raiding workplaces and factories overnight, failing to inform migrant workers of their rights and not issuing proper warrants before capturing them, even physically abusing them in the process.

In February, a Pakistani migrant worker, who was illegally residing in Korea, was nabbed on a street in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. Immigration officers allegedly dragged him to the airport and took his credit card to buy him a flight ticket to Pakistan, though he was pursuing legal action to receive overdue payment and severance money. 

In late 2010, two Vietnamese workers were found dead in the river after falling off a bridge while being chased by immigration officers. The two Vietnamese were allegedly beaten and tied up for 17 hours, which the nation’s human rights watchdog called an excessive use of force.

The groups pointed out that the ramped-up crackdown of undocumented workers is not the solution to an illegally residing foreign population.

“The reason behind the rise in the number of unregistered migrant workers is the fallout of the Employment Permit System,” Shekh al-Mamun, a Bangladeshi official from the nation’s first migrant workers’ union, told The Korea Herald. “The government should revise the system to allow workers to stay here longer and legalize unregistered migrant workers here.”

The migrant rights groups said that an estimated 23 percent of workers with legitimate visas become unregistered every year, mostly due to the system that does not allow them to change workplaces or work in Korea for more than 4 years and 10 months.

Under the Employment Permit System that came into force in 2004, the government selectively accepts unskilled laborers from Southeast and Central Asia to fill jobs left vacant by Korean workers.

In a 2015 survey conducted on 210 unregistered migrants by an association of migrant workers groups based in Daegu and North Geyongsang Province, 62.3 percent of the workers said they were unregistered because their visas expired. Nearly 20 percent said that their visas were canceled after they escaped their workplaces due to appalling labor conditions.

Among those who left their workplaces, 64.3 percent said that their pay was too low and working conditions were poor, followed by 28.6 percent who cited verbal and physical abuse.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)