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South Korea plans a fund to compensate victims of forced labor
South Korea’s government has announced plans to help compensate victims of forced labor. The move follows a recent report by the UN’s independent investigation into child labor in the country. In the report, the government admitted that children are often sent to work in factories despite international law. This has led to a call by some groups for stricter laws regulating the industries.
Migrant children from Laos and Burma
The plan is to finance payments to forced laborers from Laos and Burma by leveraging the massive profits of Japanese companies that have recently withdrawn significant assets from South Korea. According to an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the plan is to launch the largest compensation scheme for forced laborers in the country to date. This arrangement is part of a wider effort to mend strained ties with Tokyo. Since last year, a scandal involving the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Koreans from Japan in the 1960s has damaged ties between the two countries, particularly among victims and their legal representatives.
The plan has been criticized by victims and their lawyers, who say it is a relic of the past. One victim said in a recent lawsuit: “We are all familiar with the plan to compensate our deceased loved ones, but this is the first time we have been told that we will not receive more than a few million dollars and the compensation will only made for a limited period of time.” At a subsequent meeting, an official told a local news agency that the funds will be managed by a Seoul-based foundation.
Brick production in Burma
The South Korean government has rolled out the red carpet to honor victims of forced labor in Burma, a policy long in the making. Last year, the government was accused of playing the blame game, claiming that it was Tokyo that weaponized the trade. Its latest effort to fix the bottom line came in the form of a multibillion-dollar compensation fund for former workers. Several major Japanese firms, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Fujitsu, have pulled millions of dollars from South Korea in recent years, leaving many wondering who will foot the bill.
As the new administration has focused its energy on the long game, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has shown interest in the country’s ties to Japan. In late November, he met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to discuss ways to improve relations between the two countries. Although the two governments remain at odds over several contentious issues, including the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, a joint fund to compensate victims of forced labor has been proposed.
Forced child labor in Bangladesh
South Korea has announced plans to establish a fund to compensate victims of forced child labor in Bangladesh. The plan was revealed during a public hearing Thursday by Seoul’s Foreign Ministry. According to the plan, the Korean government will meet with the victims’ families to discuss payment arrangements.
The plan comes after a public outcry and fierce criticism from the victims. In the past, the diplomatic impasse on the issue of forced labor has been a source of tension between Seoul and Tokyo. But the two countries have tried to repair their deteriorating relationship, and Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s new president, has been particularly keen to improve relations with Tokyo.
According to UNICEF, there are currently 152 million children worldwide in child labour. Of that number, 12 percent are in South Asia. These children work in garment manufacturing, agriculture, mining and construction. Child labor in the region is a product of many factors such as gender, caste, migration and social norms.
Factory conditions in Vietnam
The South Korean government plans to set up a fund to compensate victims of forced labor in Vietnam. It will also help strengthen the efforts of international groups working to protect children from forced labour.
Children are recruited to work in factories and farms. They are often forced to work long hours without pay. They are often denied food, water and sleep. Some are physically abused or punished for refusing to work. Others are abducted through coercion.
In some areas, children are not allowed to leave their workplace. Their freedom of movement is restricted by threats of arrest or confiscation of their identity documents.
Child laborers in the sugar cane industry are exposed to toxic pesticides and dangerous tools. Despite their age, some report headaches, dizziness and difficulty breathing. A number of children report physical abuse and injuries.
Recruiters lure child cotton workers with false promises of payment and gifts. They are unable to terminate their contract until the promised salary is repaid.
South Korean officials are considering setting up a domestic fund to compensate Koreans enslaved by Japanese companies before the end of World War II, as they desperately try to repair relations with Tokyo that have soured in recent years over historical grievances .
The plan, unveiled at a public hearing organized by Seoul’s foreign ministry on Thursday, was met with fierce criticism from victims and their legal representatives, who have demanded that the compensation come from Japan.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have been strained since South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 upheld lower court rulings and ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate Korean forced laborers.
The companies have refused to carry out the orders, and the plaintiffs have responded by pursuing legal action aimed at forcing the companies to sell their local assets to provide compensation, a process South Korean officials fear will cause further rifts between Seoul and Tokyo. The victims have also demanded that the Japanese companies issue an apology for their ordeal.
Relations between America’s Asian allies have long been complicated by grievances related to Japan’s brutal rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Koreans were mobilized as forced laborers for Japanese companies or sex slaves in Tokyo’s wartime brothels.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who took office in May, has been eager to improve ties with Japan while pursuing stronger trilateral security cooperation with Washington in the face of the growing North Korean nuclear threat.
He met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Cambodia in November for the first bilateral summit between the countries in three years, where they expressed a commitment to quickly resolve “pending” bilateral issues, which clearly referred to the forced labor dispute.
During Thursday’s public hearing in the National Assembly, South Korean Foreign Ministry official Seo Min-jung said her government’s priority is to arrange the payments as soon as possible, noting that many forced labor victims have already died and most known survivors are in their 90s.
She said it would be “impossible” to get the Japanese companies to apologize on behalf of the wider forced labor that has for decades been a major cause of the diplomatic impasse.
“It would be important for Japan to sincerely maintain and inherit the poignant expressions of apology and remorse it has already expressed in the past,” said Seo, the ministry’s director for the Asia-Pacific region.
Seo said the payments could possibly be handled by the Seoul-based Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan. Shim Kyu-sun, the fund’s chairman, said the payments could be financed by South Korean firms that benefited from Japanese financial aid when the companies normalized ties in the 1960s, including steel giant POSCO.
“The Japanese companies have reduced much of their economic activity in South Korea and withdrawn (many of their) assets, so it is not even clear whether a liquidation process would be enough to provide compensation to the plaintiffs,” Seo said.
She said government officials planned to meet the victims and their family members in person to explain the payment plans and seek their consent.
Lim Jae-sung, a lawyer who represented some of the plaintiffs in the 2018 rulings, accused the government of pushing ahead with a settlement that is too much in line with Japan’s position while ignoring the voices of victims.
“It appears that the South Korean government’s final plan is to use the money from South Korean companies like POSCO to allow the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan to eliminate forced labor victims’ rights to claims,” Lim said. “Japan is not taking any burden at all.”
Japan insists that all war reparations issues were settled under a 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two nations, accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.
Japan reacted furiously after the South Korean rulings in 2018 and subsequently placed export controls on chemicals vital to South Korea’s semiconductor industry in 2019, citing the deterioration of trust between the countries.
Seoul accused Tokyo of weapons trade and even threatened to terminate a military intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo that was an important symbol of its three-way security cooperation with Washington. South Korea eventually backed out and kept the deal after being pressured by the Trump administration.
Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had refused to comply with the 2018 judgments and appealed again to the Supreme Court after lower courts ordered them to sell their local assets to compensate the plaintiffs.
The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether the liquidation of the companies’ assets should proceed.
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