In April 2016, Nuon Sokkheng, who was 27 years old at the time, arrived in South Korea. She received a three-year Non-Professional Work Visa (E9) that, if the holder is granted the optional extension, can last up to four years and ten months. She worked on a vegetable farm in Pocheon, Gyeonggido, for over four years. This coming February, her visa was expiring, so she had to return to her home country. She had bought a plane ticket to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for January 10th.

 

Three weeks before her flight, on December 20th, 2020, Sokkheng was found dead in her dormitory. She was 31 years old. The night before her death, there was a severe cold weather warning with the temperature dropping to minus 18 degrees Celsius. The building that Sokkheng was living in was a temporary structure made of thin sandwich panels inside a greenhouse, and the electricity and heating system was not working at the time. The team from the National Forensic Service concluded that the cause of her death was complications from hepatic cirrhosis. The experts also mentioned that while it might not be the direct cause, living in such a cold environment without heating probably would have affected her health significantly.

 

▲ A migrant farmer laborer’s housing in Ichon, Gyeonggido. A screen and a blanket are hanging to block insects and the cold.  ©Choon Hee Woo

 

Just like any other Cambodian migrant worker, Sokkheng probably learned her Korean in Cambodia. She also probably had chosen farming, with its poorer working conditions than those offered by manufacturing, because it hired more women. After passing the Korean language exam, she probably waited to hear back from a business owner and sign a contract. If her contract hadn’t gone through within two years, she would’ve had to take the Korean language test again and receive an offer from a business owner once again within two years. Sokkheng probably signed her employment contract, got a medical checkup, and boarded a plane to South Korea, leaving her family and friends behind.

 

Sokkheng was one of the 55,000 people who enter South Korea annually from 16 different countries through the Employment License System.

 

A migrant farmer laborer’s housing covered with insects and mold

 

In 2020, I met with migrant farmer laborers who were working in Gyeonggido and Gyeongsangnamdo and had conversations in their housing. It was mostly in the forms of (1) temporary structures made of light-yellow sandwich panels [like the walls in the picture above] within greenhouses, (2) shipping containers, or (3) shipping containers within greenhouses.

 

One summer day in July, I had about an hourlong conversation with five Cambodian workers in the place they share. The space was about 30 ㎡, consisting of two shipping containers next to each other with one living/sleeping room, a shower section (the toilet was outside), and a kitchen. While we were talking on the floor, one of them was catching flies mindlessly, and soon there was a pile of dead flies on the floor. When I turned my head towards the wall, several cockroaches gathering around the wall clock caught my eye. Three of the workers slept in the main room and the other two in the small space near the kitchen on the floor with blankets. There was barely any sunlight coming in.

 

Most of the housing facilities for migrant laborers were like that. When you open the door of the greenhouse covered in black awning screens, you will most likely find migrant laborers’ homes. Inside, the air often reeks of old cigarette stench from the business owner as well as mugginess from mold. The floor is just uneven dirt, which becomes wet and muddy whenever it rains.

 

The business owners usually sort or pack the vegetables in this space, so there is a bench that takes up around 6-9 ㎡. Past that space, in the corner of the greenhouse, is the migrant laborers’ living/sleeping room made up of sandwich panels, a shower section, and a kitchen. The walls are covered with black mold. There are way too many flies and cockroaches as well. Migrant laborers I met would show me their arms that they’d been scratching and tell me how itchy they were. 

 

▲ Housing for migrant laborers. There are “houses” made up of sandwich panels or shipping containers in these greenhouses. It is “temporary housing” approved by the government but migrant laborers live here permanently.   ©Choon Hee Woo

 

Another housing structure I found was a shipping container about 13-17 ㎡ big right next to a road with two lanes. When you open the front door, immediately there is a shower room. To the left of the shower room is the front door and on the right is the door to the actual living space. When you open the door to the living space, there is the living/sleeping room and kitchen. So that means that when someone is using the shower room, no one can go into or out of the rest of the living space; they just have to wait. Two or three people were living in this space and shared a fan in the hot summer weather. There was no proper address, so they were never able to receive packages, mail, or health insurance bills directly. Moreover, these buildings made of sandwich panels often didn’t have windows. One Cambodian laborer told me that there was a fire in her old workplace and she survived only because she was able to escape through a window. That experience led her to beg the new business owner to make a window in her room.

 

This form of housing never has a toilet inside. The workers always have to use a squat toilet outside. Because the extreme stench in the bathroom can permeate their hair and bodies, they wear thick plastic hair caps to the bathrooms. A license for septic tanks is required in order to make flush toilets, but such licenses aren’t given for greenhouses on farmlands.

 

Migrant laborers who became flood victims... Housing vulnerable to natural disasters

 

When a natural disaster takes place, society’s most vulnerable population is revealed. The storm that happened in the summer of 2020 especially did that. The article from Oh My News on August 7th, 2020 entitled “80% of Flood Victims are Migrant Laborers; The Reason is Ridiculous” depicted that. Even on mainstream news channels and media, migrant laborers were interviewed as primary flood victims.

 

The Labor Standards Act’s 56th Enforcement Ordinance, as well as “The Standards for Foreigner Dorm Facilities” published by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, indicate that “an environment with extreme noise or vibration, an environment prone to natural disasters such as landslides or avalanches, an environment with high humidity and danger of flooding, [or] an environment prone to contamination from filth and waste must be avoided in the building of dormitories.” The business owners are not supposed to provide dormitories in environments prone to natural disasters, but these kinds of laws and standards are meaningless in reality. Most of the housing for migrant laborers is in greenhouses right next to farmlands—the farmlands that were sunk in water due to flooding. 

 

▲ A photo of her dormitory sent by a migrant laborer who experienced flood damage in August 2020.

 

On August 11th, 2020, I visited the shelter for flood victims in Ansung, Gyeonggido. There I met David (pseudonym), a Cambodian male laborer in his mid-twenties who had been in South Korea for three months. He said he never received a disaster warning text message nor would he have understood the evacuation warning even if he had received it, because Korean is not his native language. On the day of the storm, David took a video, urgently shouting, “All the vegetables in the greenhouses are sinking. There’s a flood. What do we do? The water is so deep. What do we do?” In the three short videos that he showed me, I was able to see the desperate situation of that day.

 

“I was in the [living/sleeping] room and did not know it was raining. When I went outside, it was raining a lot. The water started coming into the house. I was so scared and didn’t know where to go.”

 

David fled to his friend’s place nearby. When the water was drained from his own housing, he was able to retrieve his clothes, alien registration card and passport, which were all soaking wet.

 

I visited his house that was made up of sandwich panels in a greenhouse covered with black awning screens. A 20kg propane tank for household use was sitting outside the greenhouse, and the yellow floor pad was also drying outside. When I went inside, the first thing that caught my eye was the kitchen full of black mold on its thin panel walls. When I returned to David’s place three months later, no one was living there.

 

The following are the common denominators for migrant farmer laborers’ housing: it is in the form of a temporary housing structure made up of sandwich panels within a greenhouse, and basic air conditioning and heating systems do not exist; it is extremely unsanitary, with swarming cockroaches and mold everywhere; it is vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, heat waves, cold waves, and fires.

 

‘Greenhouse housing is illegal but housing within a greenhouse is legal’

 

The reason that migrant laborers live in such situations is simple. It is because the Ministry of Employment and Labor gave approval for business owners to provide housing in such environments. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s press release on Sokkheng’s death, “greenhouses are not allowed [as dormitories], but sandwich panels within greenhouses are allowed.” Even worse, migrant laborers pay for this kind of housing. In February 2017, the Ministry of Employment and Labor created “A Guide for Providing Room and Board Information to and Collecting Payment from Foreign Employees.” Its goal was to set an “upper limit for room and board payment collection” so that the business owner is prohibited from overcharging for room and board. The guide says, “Even if the provided housing is a temporary structure such as a greenhouse or shipping container, room and board deduction is possible.”

 

▲ From “A Guide for Providing Room and Board Information to and Collecting Payment from Foreign Employees” (The Ministry of Employment and Labor, February 2017)

 

In cases where only housing is provided, migrant laborers pay 150,000 KRW per person (2020 minimum wage standards) per month for temporary housing facilities and up to 250,000 KRW per person for commercial residential facilities. The standard is to pay per person, not per room.

 

The housing cost for the facility made up of two shipping containers that I mentioned above is 200,000 KRW total per person (rent of 150,000 KRW plus a utility fee of 50,000 KRW). Thus, the five laborers pay a total 1,000,000 KRW monthly to the business owner. Two shipping containers are worth a monthly rent of 1,000,000 KRW.

 

No one pays their monthly rent based on their salary—except for migrant laborers. According to the guide, when the laborers’ salary increases, their rent increases as well. When the minimum wage increases every year, the rent price also increases because the rent is relative to their regular wage. As a result, for migrant laborers, even when the minimum wage increases, their salary increase is never that high because their rent is calculated relative to their pay.

 

▲ The kitchen in the migrant laborer’s residence within the greenhouse. This is where they cook and eat.   ©Choon Hee Woo

 

Migrant laborers live permanently in “temporary housing”

 

Not a single migrant laborer lives in “temporary housing” temporarily. Sokkheng came to South Korea and stayed in that “temporary” housing permanently. Many migrant laborers in South Korea live in this temporary housing for all four years and ten months before returning to their home countries. Then more laborers from 16 different countries take their place and live permanently in the same “temporary housing.” Migrant laborers regularly and permanently live in these “temporary housing facilities” approved by the government.

 

Last year on December 24th, the Ministry of Employment and Labor made an announcement in response to the media coverage of Sokkheng’s death. They declared that starting January 2021, they will reject any employment permit if the business owner provides a temporary building structure such as shipping containers in greenhouses or sandwich panels to be the migrant laborers’ housing.

 

The employment license system came into being in 2004, and many migrant human rights organizations continuously raised the issue of such housing situations since then, but the government provided a room and board guide only in 2017 and basically overlooked the issue all that time. Only after Sokkheng’s death was extensively covered in media outlets did the Foreign Resources Policy Committee, just three days after the incident, propose a residential facility development plan led by the Head of the Cabinet Office.

 

Many migrant farmer laborers continue to live in temporary buildings in greenhouses. I hope that the situation will get better for migrant laborers who arrived this year. I hope that no one will live in a temporary facility in a greenhouse. A few days ago, I met a Cambodian woman laborer in Pocheon who knew Sokkheng. This woman, who mentioned that she ate with Sokkheng a few times before her death, started to tear up as we started talking.

 

“I was so shocked to hear that a Cambodian person suddenly passed away. I’m really scared as well. I live in a foreign country alone. What if I die in my sleep from overworking and exhaustion... I feel scared because my family is not here.”

 

I wish for the repose of Sokkheng’s soul. I hope she is able to rest in a peaceful place. And I hope that no one else ever goes through the tragedy that she did.

 

[About the author] Choon Hee Woo is currently completing her Ph.D in Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; she did field studies in South Korea and Cambodia. She is in the process of writing her thesis on Cambodian migrant farmer laborers who moved to South Korea. She is interested in food, migration, and gender issues. In 2018, she organized the photography exhibition “Migrating and Non-Visible”, and in 2020, participated in the exhibition “HYPHEN-NATION”. She wants to capture migrant laborers’ vivid stories through the medium of photography and believes in the power of these stories to change society.

 

Published: January 5th, 2021

Translated by Seung-a Han

*Original article: https://ildaro.com/8934

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

기사 내용과 관련이 없는 글, 욕설을 사용하는 등 타인의 명예를 훼손하는 글은 관리자에 의해 예고없이 임의 삭제될 수 있으므로 주의하시기 바랍니다. 댓글 작성 시 상대방에 대한 배려와 책임을 담아주세요.

• 닉네임
• 비밀번호
• 
• 도배방지 입력