Two Filipinas from Seoul city’s foreign caregivers pilot programme who disappeared from their accommodation in Gangnam-gu on Sept 15 were found in Busan after being re-employed as cleaners, according to the Philippine government’s Department of Migrant Workers (DMW).
In an interview on Oct 9 with the Philippines’ 24 Oras, Bernard Olalia, undersecretary for licensing and adjudication of the DMW, said that the two caregivers claimed to have had difficulties due to “overwork and overwatch”.
“(The caregivers) were able to find another job offering employment as a cleaner,” he said. “That was where they were caught, with their new employer. They were brought to the immigration authority in Busan.”
Since September, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been running a six-month foreign caregiver pilot programme with the Ministry of Employment and Labour.
The programme aimed to provide selected Seoul households with affordable child care in response to a shortage of local caregivers willing to do low-wage care work.
The pilot started with a total of 100 women of Filipino nationality aged 24-38. Currently, they are working in 169 households.
However, on Sept 15, two of the pilot programme’s caregivers disappeared from their accommodations in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, central Seoul, and attempts to contact them were unsuccessful.
The two were located around the first week of October, when their new employer reported them to the Busan Immigration Office, which announced on Oct 4 that it had apprehended them at an accommodation facility in Yeonje-gu, Busan.
Han Leo Cacdac, secretary of the DMW, during a press conference in the Philippines on Oct 7 said the two caregivers are currently in the custody of Busan’s immigration authorities for further investigation and will receive legal and financial assistance from the DMW Action Fund for Distressed Workers in case of deportation.
According to Cacdac, the others have been “advised to take responsibility for their obligations and to complete their duties by not violating South Korea’s immigration laws – unless they are being abused”.
“It’s a pilot programme, and we expect certain challenges, issues and problems along the way, which are now being carefully addressed by both sides,” he said. — The Korea Herald/ANN
