Man jailed for kicking female migrant worker in face

Man jailed for kicking female migrant worker in face

A South Korean man was sentenced to a one-year jail term for assaulting a female migrant worker at his workplace.

The defendant, in his 40s, was found guilty by the Suwon District Court of kicking a Vietnamese migrant worker in her 20s in the face, court officials said Friday.

“The defendant committed a very serious level of violence against the victim, who was his subordinate at the workplace, and the victim is believed to have suffered not only physical injuries but also psychological pain as a result,” Judge Seol Il-young, who handed down the sentence, said in the court ruling.

Prosecutors earlier requested a two-year prison sentence for the man at the final hearing on Aug. 12, arguing the grave nature of the offense.

The assault took place on May 19 at a food company in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, where the victim was working under the assailant’s supervision. While packing eggs, he punched and kicked her in the face and body, leaving her with bruises and injuries that required two weeks of medical care, according to police.

During questioning, the man told police he assaulted the Vietnamese worker during a quarrel, claiming he lost his temper because he thought she was “disrespecting” him.

Growing migrant workforce, rising violence

According to Statistics Korea, the number of officially registered migrant workers in South Korea stood at 1.01 million as of December, up about 150,000 from 2023.

The figure is estimated at around 1.4 to 1.5 million when including undocumented workers, officials said.

With the migrant workforce growing, cases of workplace harassment against them have also surged in recent years.

Reports of workplace harassment involving migrant workers more than tripled from 65 in 2020 to 225 last year, according to data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor cited by Rep. Kim Wi-sang of the ruling People Power Party. As of May, 112 cases had already been reported.

Advocacy groups for migrant workers argue that workplace harassment is far more widespread than official figures suggest, as most cases are handled internally and excluded from official statistics.

“About 70 percent of migrant workers are employed at businesses with fewer than 30 people, and many of them work at workplaces with fewer than five. That means much more harassment goes unseen,” said Jeong Young-seop, an executive member of the Migrant Workers’ Equality Alliance.

“In many cases, when migrant workers say they want to transfer after suffering verbal or physical abuse, employers see it as defiance and retaliate by not paying wages, which makes their situation even worse.”

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