In a national first South Korea’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Employment and Labor are working together in a new initiative aimed at ending the exploitation of season workers. Working in partnership, the two ministries plan to conduct inspections as one aspect of what officials are calling a “complete overhaul” of their seasonal worker scheme in order to prevent trafficking and exploitation of the workers.

Government taking action 

Last year South Korea’s seasonal worker scheme came under attack due to the release of a damning report by an advocacy group. Migrant workers interviewed shared horrific stories of modern slavery and systemic abuse. The report pointed to a lack of central oversight as the fundamental cause enabling the abuse. Accordingly, in a win for safe migration, the government is taking action.  

A government official shared in Korea Times: 

In December, the presidential office ordered a complete overhaul of the monitoring and management system for seasonal workers. This joint inspection is being conducted as part of those follow‑up measures. 

The inspectors will be targeting mainly agricultural and fisheries, workplaces that employ foreign seasonal workers. Tellingly, the cooperative effort is taking place in a grim statistical landscape. According to a senior official, South Korea has seen a recent surge in confirmed “exploitative trafficking” cases. Many of those cases contain a forced labor component. Indeed, labor exploitation was the most common type of abuse reported. And in all the cases reported, the victims were foreign nationals.  

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