2 Migrant Workers Commit Suicide As Thousands Face Deportation


By Byun Duk-kun
Staff Reporter
Tens of thousands of undocumented foreign workers face deportation, leaving behind their unfulfilled ``Korean Dream.’’

According to the Justice Ministry and Labor Ministry, about 10,000 foreign workers, less than 10 percent of those destined for deportation, left the country as of Tuesday. The remainder should leave the country by tomorrow or face deportation from Monday. However, sources say that the government doesn’t have the facilities to accommodate the workers, even if they were rounded up.

Facing a hard choice between voluntary departure and forced deportation, at least two migrant workers _ Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi _ committed suicide.

A 31-year-old undocumented worker from Sri Lanka, Chiran Tharaka, committed suicide Tuesday by jumping into an oncoming subway train at a subway station in Songnam, Kyonggi Province.

Another undocumented worker from Bangladesh also took his own life Wednesday by hanging himself at his own workplace in Kimpo, Kyonggi Province.

Police suspect the two committed suicide due to pressures they faced from deportation as they both had been staying in the country illegally for more than four years.

With as many as 130,000 migrant workers waiting to be deported to their home countries, the nation’s civic organizations are starting to speak out against the government’s dogged decision to deport anyone who has been staying illegally in the country for more than four years.

``The South Korean government is forcing these undocumented migrant workers to kill themselves with its one-sided decision to deport anyone who’s been here for more than four years regardless of their circumstances,’’ a group of civic organizations opposing the government’s move to deport the nation’s undocumented migrant workers said yesterday during a news conference in downtown Seoul.

The group also accused the government of killing migrant workers with their ``wrongful policy’’ to drive out all illegal residents.

``The government must withdraw its decision to deport foreign workers at once and legalize every migrant worker in the country to prevent a second or even third suicide attempt,’’ they said.

The Ministry of Justice said that it will start cracking down on illegal foreign residents from next Monday. However, the ministry may have difficulty in locating the whereabouts of more than 130,000 undocumented workers throughout the country as they are still unwilling to give up their working rights in the country.

Out of the 130,000 foreign workers _ 80,000 who stayed more than four years and an additional 50,000 who failed to register under the new work permit system _ who face deportation, only 10 percent, or some 10,700, of them have so far left the country voluntarily, according to the Labor Ministry. The rest are still in hiding throughout the nation.

The Justice Ministry is also trying to locate a large enough facility to house tens of thousands of undocumented workers until their departure.

The Justice Ministry had designated two juvenile detention centers in Kimchon and Chonan and police detention cells as their facilities to house those undocumented workers who are facing deportation. The decision was later withdrawn as a number of human rights organizations as well as the police opposed the decision, saying the detention centers and cells are designed for criminals, not workers, thus the decision infringes on the workers’ human rights.

In addition, the Justice Ministry is also faced with a difficult question regarding the nation’s Korean-Chinese migrant workers.

More than 5,300 Korean-Chinese workers staying in the country, most of whom are undocumented, yesterday visited the Justice Ministry at the government complex in Kwachon, Kyonggi Province, to file their applications for the reinstatement of their Korean citizenship.

``In principle, anyone who has been here illegally for more than four years must be deported,’’ Soh Kyung-suk, pastor at a Korean-Chinese church in Seoul which organized the move, told The Korea Times yesterday. ``However, these Korean-Chinese workers are different from other migrant workers because they have a very close relationship with our country’s own history,’’ he added.

Although such a move comes at a time when most of those applicants are facing deportation by the South Korean government, Soh argued it was more important to give them what is rightfully theirs. ``What they are asking is their born right to live in their native country,’’ he said.

Soh, whose own father had returned to the country from Shanghai after the country was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in 1948, said the Korean-Chinese workers, though they wanted to, were unable to come back to the country only due to various difficulties.

The ministry had announced that they would not grant Korean citizenship to those Korean-Chinese workers, saying the move is only to avoid deportation.

Still, the workers argued the government’s decision to send them back is to let them die.

``My family, my home and my life are here. What can I do when I go back to China? I’ll just have to run into a 10-million-won debt again to come back and work in South Korea,’’ Cho Dong-shik, a 39-year-old Korean-Chinese worker who has been staying in the country for seven years, told The Korea Times.

benjamine@koreatimes.co.kr