courts have applied labor-related laws regardless of the status of sojourn in the case
of aliens who provide labor to earn wage. In reality, however, many migrant workers
do not enjoy the rights under labor laws, or they are discriminated from Korean workers.
In other words, labor laws and policies are not applied properly to migrant workers.
Many migrant workers live in poor living conditions and have difficulty
communicating with others or adapting to the new living environment. Many migrant
workers engaging in agriculture, livestock industry, and fishery jobs or coastal fishing
and trainees dispatched by Korean businesses investing in foreign countries are not
protected adequately under the Labor Standards Act and the Minimum Wage Act. The
international community has cited human rights issues associated with art performers
and women migrant workers in the country who are exposed to human trafficking
and gender discrimination.
In the 1990s and thereafter, international human rights organizations expressed
concern or made the relevant recommendations about a total of 80 cases of migrants’
human rights situation of the country. Such shows that they are serious issues that
should be settled by our society.
The Guidelines indicate the desired direction of government policy formulated for
the enhancement of migrant workers’ human rights and present detailed principles of
the efforts made to reduce the gap between the relevant laws and the reality based
on international human rights norms.
1. Provision of pre-entry information
A. Current status and problems
• Majority of migrant workers say that there is a gap between the details of their
employment contract and the actual working conditions, e.g., work hours, salary,
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Human Rights Guidelines on Migration