or fishing vessels, is mostly an isolated place from which they have to separate
themselves, i.e., leaving the workplace or refusing going on board, in order to
find some help from a job center, the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the
Office of Oceans and Fisheries, or manning agents, usually leading their
employers to file the missing report for their unknown whereabouts.
127. There was a case in point where the Immigration Office failed to inform
migrant workers about how to file a complaint or seek protection of rights and
left them turning undocumented. In 2015, the Gwangju High Court ruled that
the forced deportation order placed on them be illegal as it is based on
disposition of revocation of the status of stay which is basically nonexistent
due to the lack of formality as a legitimate disposition (2014Nu6318).
128. Rather than to drive them out of the boundary of the law, the system, therefore,
needs to be revised to ensure their freedom to choose an occupation in the long
run and to embrace more reasons to change the workplace as many times as
needed in protest of violation on human rights or unfair treatments and ease the
liabilities of workers in proving the misconduct of employers in the short term.
129. In addition, it is necessary for employers to fill in reasons in the report of
change in employment, and their permit of hiring migrant workers be
revoked or limited once their report proves false so that the system can no
longer be abused as the "report of absconding" which technically enables an
employer to revoke the status of stay and trigger protective or compulsory
eviction order.
Ⅵ. Protection and Remedies for Foreigners (Article 6)
Issue 16. Prevention of Human Trafficking and Protection of Victims
16-1. Legislation to Implement the Protocol and Establishment of Cooperative
System
130. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children (the "Protocol") ratified by the government in
2015 states that "trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the
threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of
deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation, while the
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