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As of 2013, around 250,000 migrant workers were employed in the Republic of Korea
(South Korea) under the Employment Permit System (EPS). Since the establishment of the
EPS ten years ago, Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns on how this work
scheme directly contributes to human and labour rights violations by severely restricting
migrant workers’ ability to change jobs and challenge abusive practices by employers.
Similar concerns have also been raised by a number of UN bodies,2 but the South Korean
government has consistently failed to implement their recommendations. As a consequence,
a significant number of migrant workers continue to be regularly exposed to serious
exploitation, which includes excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, denial of rest days and breaks, threats, violence, trafficking and forced labour Following Amnesty International’s previous research on the EPS in 2006 and 2009,3
this
report focuses on migrant agricultural workers, who account for some 8% of all EPS workers.4
Agriculture is one of the sectors with the least legal safeguards and, consequently, migrant
workers in this sector are at greater risk of exploitation and abuse.