Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Migrant workers toil in harsh conditions on SKorean farms
POCHEON, South Korea — “It’s a world of lawlessness,” Rev. Kim Dal-sung muttered over the phone as he drove his tiny car over narrow dirt paths zigzagging through greenhouses made of plastic sheets and tubes.
In the bleak landscape of dull blue and gray in Pocheon, a town near South Korea’s ultramodern capital, hundreds of migrant workers from across Asia toil in harsh conditions, unprotected by labor laws while doing the hardest, lowestpaid farm work most Koreans avoid.
The death of a 31-yearold female Cambodian worker at one of the farms in December has revived decadeslong criticism over South Korean exploitation of some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in Asia.
Officials have promised reforms, but it’s unclear what will change.
More than two months after laborer Nuon Sokkheng’s death, South Korea recently announced plans to improve conditions for migrant farm workers, including expanding health care access. Daunted by opposition from farmers, officials chose not to ban using shipping containers as shelter.
On a chilly February afternoon, groups of workers wearing bandannas and conical hats appeared and disappeared among hundreds of translucent tunnel-shaped greenhouses — each about 100 yards long — harvesting spinach, lettuce and other winter greens and stacking them in boxes.
Kim, a pastor and outspoken advocate for migrant workers’ rights, is an unwelcome visitor at the farms in Pocheon, especially after Sokkheng was found dead Dec. 20 inside a poorly heated, squalid shelter at one of the farms.
Her death, and those of many others, highlight the often cruel conditions facing migrant workers who have little recourse against their bosses.
“Farm owners here are like absolute monarchs ruling over migrant workers,” Kim said. “Some say they want to kill me.”
There are about 20,000 Asian migrant workers legally working on South Korean farms, mostly from Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam. They were brought in under its Employment Permit System, or EPS.
To keep out undocumented immigrants, it makes it difficult for workers to leave their employers, even when they are grossly overworked or abused.
Activists and workers say migrant workers in Pocheon work 10-15 hours a day, with only two Saturdays off per month. They earn $1,300 to $1,600 per month, well below the legal minimum wage their contracts are supposed to ensure.
Rising before sunrise, they crouch or bend for hours as they work their way through the huge plastic tunnels at each farm, planting, weeding, picking and thinning crops.
The workers often are crammed in shipping containers or poorly ventilated huts.
Activists who interviewed Sokkheng’s coworkers say she came to Pocheon in 2016 and died weeks before she was due to return to Cambodia to spend time with her family. She appeared to have no obvious health problems, but an autopsy showed she died from complications from cirrhosis, likely worsened by the harsh conditions she lived and worked in.
She died during a bitter cold snap. The shelter’s heating system was faulty, and others living there went to stay with friends to escape the cold. Sokkheng refused to go.
Just 10% of the 200,000 migrant workers brought to South Korea under EPS work on farms. The Labor Ministry said in October 90 to 114 EPS workers died each year from 2017 to 2019.