"A Miracle of 0% Runaway Rate?": The 'Human Trafficking' Broker Who Turned Korea into Hell

On August 25 in Conner, the Philippines. Paju City officials made more than 300 local applicants perform group duck walks without any physical fitness test standards, and the person holding the microphone was Mr. Hong, head of a private recruitment agency.

[Paju City Official: We just told them, "Try doing the duck walk," just like that. Spontaneously. There are no criteria for a physical fitness test. We just did it to show that we came here, showed interest, and looked at them.]

[Mr. Hong / Recruitment Agency Head: I only do one thing. I interpret.]

Among the seasonal workers brought in through Mr. Hong, eight were officially recognized as victims of human trafficking by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in November last year. While Mr. Hong emphasized that he was cleared of human trafficking charges under the Criminal Act, the Mokpo Branch of the Ministry of Employment and Labor recently referred him to prosecutors on charges of intermediary exploitation under the Labor Standards Act. When asked how they vetted Mr. Hong's agency, a Paju City official replied as follows:

[Paju City Official: Because they had done it before. Previously.]

However, the official claimed it was the first time hearing that there were human trafficking victims among the workers brought in through Mr. Hong.

[Paju City Official: We didn't know anything about that. People are even talking about human trafficking?]

Yet, the reason for continuing to work with Mr. Hong was clear.

[Paju City Official: In our case, the thing we consider most is actually the runaway rate. But there is no runaway rate. So we receive excellence incentives from the Ministry of Justice and get allocated more workers.]

Paju City regarded Mr. Hong as a vetted agency. Officials said it was also Mr. Hong who arranged the agreement with Conner.

[Paju City Official: He told us that Conner also wanted to do this actively and that their mayor wanted to sign an MOU. That is how the MOU was signed. It's not just this agency; many people from agencies come to us asking to do programs with Vietnam, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.]

Local governments do not seek out foreign municipalities themselves. Instead, recruitment agencies approach them, claiming to know overseas municipalities well. Local governments simply enjoy the convenience provided by these agencies, while turning a blind eye to why the agencies offer such convenience. The Ministry of Justice tells local governments to contact foreign municipalities on their own and recruit seasonal workers directly, but local governments say they cannot do so directly. Paju City stated that because the Ministry of Justice, the governing authority, does not take action, they have no choice but to rely on private agencies.

[Paju City Official: Right now, signing an MOU for foreign seasonal workers and dealing directly with foreign local governments is not easy. That's why an intermediary organization has to be involved. It would be great if the Ministry of Justice did something, but because they don't act, local governments struggle.]

In an effort to curb brokers, the Ministry of Justice implemented legislation early this year that punishes brokers or intermediaries with up to three years in prison if they intervene in the recruitment of seasonal workers, a process that should be handled directly by the government or local authorities. SBS asked the Ministry of Justice about the number of punishments handed down since the revised law took effect, physical test criteria, and measures to support victims. After repeated requests, a response arrived after three days stating, "2 cases punished, 6 cases under investigation." Responses to the remaining four questions have yet to be received. Haenam County, where Maria (pseudonym) from the Philippines worked as a seasonal worker, was investigated by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in 2024. A Haenam County official conceded what had to be conceded, stating that, like Paju City, they began working with Mr. Hong because of his low runaway rate.

[Haenam County Official: Looking through media reports, they said Buyeo had zero runaways. We also wanted to sign an MOU with the Philippines, so we asked for a connection and received contact information through them. The agency that people call brokers solves a lot of problems in the middle. Back then, it was just me and one other employee. The number has decreased a bit now, but at that time there were about 800 (seasonal workers).]

Unable to manage 800 people with just two staff members, they received an introduction to Mr. Hong from Buyeo County to reduce the runaway rate. However, Maria testified that she suffered wage exploitation in Buyeo County during her first year and in Haenam the following year, leading to official government recognition as a victim of human trafficking. As local governments sought out recruitment agencies with a good reputation by word of mouth, human trafficking abuses spread nationwide. Haenam County dismissed Maria's testimony that during a fact-finding survey she was forced to change her answer from YES to NO when asked if her passport or bank account had been seized because the employer was watching, claiming that could never have happened.

[Maria (pseudonym) / Human Trafficking Victim: Because they were watching, I had no choice but to check NO for everything.]

[Haenam County Official: The employers were never present, not even once. Nor were any members of the employer's family.]

However, the 2024 NHRCK decision confirmed two facts regarding Haenam County. First, Haenam County conducted farm inspections on at least 11 occasions in 2023, and accompanied Mr. Hong on at least seven of those visits. When conducting inspections, they brought along the very person who should have been under inspection. Second, a special inspection in January 2024 uncovered 49 cases of wage exploitation and seven cases of bankbook confiscation among 142 workers. The decision stated, "Haenam County confirmed some transfers from the workers' accounts to Mr. Hong, yet took no separate measures to compensate for the damage." In other words, they knew, but did nothing. This was likely because the agency lowered the runaway rate by assisting with MOUs, interpretation, and workforce management. The price was a deluge of human trafficking victim identification certificates issued to workers who could not speak Korean. Among the 92 victims of human trafficking verified by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, 37 are seasonal workers. Migrant rights groups say that at least 13 of them entered the country through Mr. Hong. South Korea ratified the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol in 2015 and enacted the Anti-Human Trafficking Act as implementing legislation. The protocol considers controlling and exploiting someone by taking advantage of their vulnerable status to be human trafficking, even if the person consented. The Anti-Human Trafficking Act uses the same definition. However, this law contains no penal provisions. While human trafficking crimes exist under the Criminal Act, they only penalize cases involving the buying or selling of persons, or abducting them through assault, intimidation, or deceit. This is why seasonal workers like Maria cannot hold perpetrators criminally liable under the Criminal Act, even after being officially recognized by the government as victims of human trafficking.

[Ko Ki-bok / Head of the Migration Human Rights and Cultural Center for All: The problem is that the Anti-Human Trafficking Act has no punishment provisions. So when the police investigate these cases, they do not investigate them as human trafficking. If there is a contract, they conclude, "This person signed a loan agreement, so what's the problem?" and decide not to refer the case to prosecutors, effectively clearing them.]

The competent authority, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, points out the same issue.

[Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Official: Loan agreements, withholding passports or bank accounts, and nonconsensual wage deductions are identification indicators of human trafficking victims. However, the current Anti-Human Trafficking Act only provides frameworks for victim identification and support, without provisions for punishing perpetrators. Since this is also inconsistent with the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is pursuing research to introduce penal regulations.]

The charge on which the Mokpo Employment and Labor Office referred Mr. Hong to prosecutors is also intermediary exploitation under the Labor Standards Act, not human trafficking. Because human trafficking charges under the Criminal Act are unworkable, they took a detour.

[Ko Ki-bok / Head of the Migration Human Rights and Cultural Center for All: The government needs to establish a system that properly matches migrant workers with farms in need. It must not pass the buck onto basic local governments that lack international cooperation capacity, telling them to handle it themselves. The government should establish a public institution to directly intervene and handle the matching.]

In 2024, the NHRCK recommended to the Prime Minister that the governing ministry be adjusted and that the entities signing MOUs be elevated to the level of the national government or metropolitan/provincial governments. Yet the structure of leaving everything to under-resourced municipal governments has not changed. Recruitment agencies still stand at selection sites, and human trafficking victims continue to emerge.

[Maria (pseudonym) / Human Trafficking Victim: Please help us and listen to our voices. So that no one has to go through what I experienced.]
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.