Hundreds of Nepalis participated in a signature campaign organised by Amnesty International Nepal in Kathmandu, demanding protection for migrant agricultural workers in South Korea. The campaign held on 16 November in Kathmandu called on the South Korean Government to end restrictions on job changes and unfair treatment of migrant workers under the current labour laws.
There are approximately 20,000 migrant agricultural workers in South Korea, with many arriving from Cambodia, Vietnam and Nepal under the Employment Permit System (EPS) migrant workers scheme. The EPS favours employers, leaving migrants trapped and vulnerable to various forms of abuse including intimidation and violence, squalid accommodation, excessive working hours, no weekly rest days and unpaid overtime.
Additionally, an EPS employer can terminate a migrant’s contract without having to justify the decision. However, migrants who want to leave their jobs must obtain a release form signed by their employer, without which they are at risk of being reported to the immigration authorities by their employer as “runaways”, subjecting them to arrest and deportation.
Migrants are often compelled to stay on with an abusive boss due to the load of loans which leads them to work in forced labor situations.