VULNERABLE, low-paid Filipinos have been exploited, tricked and abused under a migrant worker scheme launched by South Korea to plug its severe labour shortage, an investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation has found.
Under the scheme — which also recruits workers from Nepal, Vietnam, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, Uzbekistan and Thailand — farmers and fishermen relocate to South Korea for five to eight months of work with the promise of big wages to take home.
But a dozen ex-workers say the scheme falls short. Many returned empty-handed and some risked losing land to the brokers who sealed their temporary contracts.
Workers said brokers had charged excessive fees for securing them back-breaking work, controlled their movements by confiscating their passports and documents, and cheated them out of promised wages.
"This clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of seasonal workers to human trafficking and forced labour," said Ko Gikbo of the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea, a coalition of groups working to improve migrant rights.
"The brokers treated seasonal workers like slaves," said Ko.
Seeking better oversight, Manila announced plans in March to channel future migrant workers through a bilateral deal.
No bilateral agreement on the seasonal farm workers programme has yet been reached.
More than 3,500 Filipinos have been recruited since 2022, when South Korea launched sister-city agreements that twin Filipino states with richer ones in the East Asian country.
The workers were drawn to the scheme by the promise of earning up to five times what they can make at home.
An analysis of the documents of 12 former seasonal workers revealed systemic contract violations in deals often struck by independent brokers.
Among complaints: welfare violations, exorbitant broker fees, harsh conditions, diluted pay and a lack of redress.
Rice farmer Juan is typical of the victims interviewed over a four-month investigation.
Enticed by the prospect of a hefty salary, Juan, 42, staked his family's 2ha farm for a chance to work a season in South Korea.
The work was brokered last July. He was promised a monthly salary of 43,000 Philippine pesos, more than double his usual takings for a five-month stint.
But when he arrived in Hwasun, he was forced to work as a mountain grasscutter, a gruelling job doable only after hiking two hours through peak summer heat.
He complained to the brokers, expecting to be redeployed. Instead, he was told to go to the airport the following day.
The family had signed over land as collateral to secure the overseas work contract and said the brokers tried to keep that land when Juan returned early.
Juan said it took a four-month fight and 180,000 pesos in legal fees to win back the plot.
Another victim, Bianca, who spent five months picking strawberries in South Korea, said she had to work 14-hour days and that brokers kept her bank book and passport for her entire stay.
"The brokers sent only 15,000 pesos a month to our families in the Philippines."
She left for South Korea in 2022 on a promise of 35,000 pesos a month, but said she was then charged 20,000 a month for housing, food and "handling".
Last year, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), the government arm set up to protect Filipinos working overseas, received 150 complaints related to illegal recruitment, labour practice and welfare under the seasonal farm workers programme.
The DMW said it was looking into them, as well as investigating 66 brokers for wrongdoing.
In Laguna, an agricultural province about 90km from Manila, former farm workers recruited in the towns of Paete and Pangil said they were asked to pay 60,000 pesos as a "processing" fee to land a job.
Yet there was no mention of any fee in the contract that Mark signed in April 2023.
The 42-year-old statistical researcher should have earned about 60,000 pesos per month, five times his usual salary, but was charged for flights, insurance and other fees.
So he earned only half that, working on a 20ha potato farm in the northeastern province of Gangwon. "I never expected that we had to work harder than a carabao (buffalo)," said Mark.
"I vowed to never work in farms in South Korea again."
The writer is from Reuters