South Korea seeks to deport 15,000 undocumented workers from Kazakhstan

Южная Корея хочет депортировать 15 тысяч нелегально работающих там казахстанцев

Deporting 15,000 illegal Kazakhstani migrants from South Korea is one condition of the legal employment agreement being negotiated between the two countries / Collage by Kursiv.media, photo editor: Dastan Shanay

According to Svetlana Zhakupova, minister of labor and social protection of Kazakhstan, South Korea has requested the repatriation of approximately 15,000 undocumented Kazakhstani workers. As she noted, this requirement is one of the conditions for signing the employment agreement.

«We have finalized the document and submitted it to South Korea via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) for their consideration. They have set three conditions for the agreement,» said Zhakupova.

According to the official, the conditions are the following:

Establishing a post of an employment attaché at the embassy of Kazakhstan in South Korea;

Repatriating 15,000 Kazakhstani citizens illegally staying in the Republic of Korea;

Requiring mandatory certification for all Kazakhstani workers traveling to South Korea.

«We have fulfilled all the conditions on our side and are now waiting for South Korea’s response. The MFA is going to apply the readmission procedure for illegal migrants: those who voluntarily buy a ticket and go home will not be charged. Otherwise, they will face legal consequences, though the exact nature of those consequences is still unclear,» the minister explained.

She added that all agreement-related procedures are to be completed before the end of 2024.

«We have been examining this matter for a year. Even though we opened migration centers in Pavlodar, Oskemen and Turkestan, Seoul insisted that the centers should only be in those cities where direct flights to Korea are available. That’s why the assessment is held only in Almaty, Turkestan and the Almaty region,» Zhakupova explained.

Earlier this week the minister of labor criticized the citizens of Kazakhstan for being reluctant to accept jobs paying $617 per month, while also receiving unemployment benefits. Zhakupova said that many Kazakhstanis aren’t prone to work hard, contrasting their attitude with the Chinese parenting culture, where kids are taught to value hard work from school age. She also pointed out that some Kazakhstanis demand more than $1,500 per month even without holding a university degree.