Undocumented Mongolian Workers in Pursuit of the Korean Dream

IMMIGRATION | BY NARANTUGULDUR SAIJRAKH

Considering that the average monthly salary in Mongolia is $100 – far less than what one could earn in South Korea working on factory floors – the increased opportunity to leave the country under the the Employment Permit System (EPS), introduced by the Korean Government in 2004, was greeted by Mongolians with singing and chanting: No longer was applying for Korean work visas a task for only rocket scientists. Nevertheless, once they enter South Korea, the incoherence of the EPS rulings and monitoring drives the legal immigrants to go outlaw.

Fundamentally, the EPS was designed to attract more immigrant workers willing to settle in for low-paid and low-level industrial jobs that Koreans themselves refuse to work. This program allows bigger number of migrants to enter South Korea and work for longer period of time in agricultural and industrial sectors. Although initiated with the supportive intention to ease the procedure for obtaining work visas to South Korea, thus decreasing chances of illegal migrants, the initiative brought more complications than anything else.

A year after the EPS was established, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Korea and Mongolia, which helped founding the Labor Brokering Bureau in Mongolia that deals with documentation and visa applications for the potential Mongolian migrants. Within a few months, 7 000 were already registered to participate. The fees for such participation, excluding visa application fee and transportation costs, add up to $850 to $910 – an enormous amount for the low- to-no-income applicants that usually apply for such programs. Those could only be financed by loans. Besides, the process of obtaining the work permit can last from a month to a year, burdening the debtors to start working immediately after the permit is issued in hopes to repay their debts with the new income: A seemingly pragmatic solution, since the job placements are secured by the time the migrants enter South Korea as EPS participants . Nevertheless, as an old saying goes, “If it sounds too good to be true, then most probably it is too good to be true.”

Migrants arrive in South Korea unaware of their labor rights, wages and working conditions, because of deficient pre-employment information and limited job selection provided by the EPS. Therefore, due to the system’s incompetent examination of employers and inadequate safety and health inspections in job sights, many participants in the program end up in so-called 3D Jobs: dirty, difficult and dangerous. The language barrier is also an issue: Though basic knowledge of Korean is expected from the EPS’s applicants, they usually cheat their way through the tests. So, lack of enforcement of foreign labor rights by the Korean government and lack of knowledge of the Korean language by the Mongolian immigrants result in the immigrants falling victims of unfair and abusive treatment by Korean employers. Koreans make it clear who is boss.

The EPS limits the liberty of the participants to switch jobs, if unsatisfied with the working conditions. The system approves just three job changes at most, but only with the permission of the current employer. It is not a twist of bad fate that employers refuse to let go cheap labor force when the permission is requested. Instead, they even threaten their employees with dismissal from the job. Since getting fired prevents chances of continuing employment within the country, it automatically leads to deportation. With a heavy burden to pay off their debts and high expectations of sending remittance to their families back home in Mongolia, the migrants cannot afford to leave Korea that soon. In addition, Korean employers are inclined to hiring illegal workers, because they require no additional paperwork and tend to work harder than their legal counterparts. Above all, the legal workers pay 18.7 percent of non-refundable tax from their income, which represents a significant reduction from their earnings.

All the aforementioned reasons push legal Mongolian migrants to switch their status to illegal. In essence, the EPS’s provision to bring a bigger number of immigrant workers ironically leads to increasing the numbers of un-documented workers. The fact that the system’s administration still has not uncovered and acknowledged this latest “fashion trend” is yet another evidence of the EPS’s incompetence. Perhaps, the South Korean government covers up this truth claiming everything is tip-top only because these workers, legal or not, keep contributing to the industrial sector, which depends heavily on foreign labor due to the shortage of Korean labor force. This sector adds a value of 40 percent to South Korea’s Gross Domestic Product, hence representing a significant factor for the country’s rapid economic growth and prestige of being called one of the “Asian Tigers.”

According to the official estimation, about 35 000 (informal sources state that this number is double) of Mongolians – a significant population outflow for a country with a total population of only 2.7 million – currently reside and work in South Korea. Most of these residents are there illegally and usually stay in the country for long in fear to be fined $3000 – 20 000 and deported if caught. There are more severe consequences if this fine cannot be paid off, which usually is the case with the Mongolian illegal immigrants, since they send most of their income as remittance back home. Also, the deported workers are prohibited to re-enter South Korea for ninety years. In fact, all other nations close their doors for once recorded illegal immigrants. For the Mongolians, once pushed to the opposite side of legal immigration status, there’s no going back.

Gereltsetseg Badamdorj contributed in this article with her extensive research on the subject.