Justice Minister of South Korea urged by APMM: "We would like to call on the Ministry of Justice to heed our urgent demand to immediately and unconditionally stop the crackdown on all migrant workers."

November 11, 2011

Hon. KWON JAE JIN
Minister
Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea
Building #5, Gwacheon Government Complex,
Jungang-dong1, Gwacheon-si, Kyunggi-do
Republic of Korea
Tel : 82-2-503-7023
E-mail : webmaster@moj.go.kr
Thru the Office of the Inspector General

Dear Minister Kwon Jae Jin:

Warm greetings from Hong Kong!

We in the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, a Hong Kong-based regional migrant center, would like to express strongly our concern on the continued crackdown by the South Korean government on undocumented migrants. We have received information from our network in Korea, in particular the Alliance of Filipino Migrant Workers’Associations in Korea, that several migrant workers have already been arrested and detained by immigration police.

Already, more than a thousand migrants have been arrested since January this year.
Based on previous reports of maltreatment during the series of crackdowns in recent years and the lack of mechanisms to ensure that the human rights of migrants are protected, we are concerned that the migrants will once again be subject to abuse and maltreatment.

In this regard, we would like to call on the Ministry of Justice to heed our urgent demand to immediately and unconditionally stop the crackdown on all migrant workers. The blanket arrest, detention and deportation of migrant workers based on their visa status is in itself a violation of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

The crackdown does not resolve the issue of the rise in undocumented migrants in South Korea. Instead, it only aggravates the problem of migration with the human rights and dignity of migrant workers being compromised or violated by authorities who should be protecting them.

In the same vein, we implore your good office in ensuring that the rights of migrant workers who have already been arrested and detained be protected and upheld at all times. We strongly wish that they be given the right to access justice and have their legal counsel, access and avail of health services especially for those in urgent need of medical attention, be visited by their families, friends and other supportive peers, and be treated humanely, among many others.

We fervently hope that the Ministry of Justice would heed these urgent demands as more and more migrant workers are likely to be subject to grave violations and further repression. We look forward to your immediate and positive response to this request.

Thank you very much.

Respectfully yours,

Ramon Bultron
Managing Director