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Mar. 29  2024
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Public Assembly a Success

By Lee Min-jun, Staff Reporter of Asian Workers News

Source  :  Asian Workers News No. 132 (June 12, 2002)

The public assembly urging peace, antiwar sentiment and the guarantee of migrant workers human rights was a success.
On June 2, migrant workers held a public rally sponsored by the Committee for June Peace Inheritance and the Joint Committee for Migrant Workers in Korea (JCMK), which finished at the Seodaemun Park in Seoul. Because the rally was jointly conducted by Korea and Japan, there was a simultaneous gathering held at Gin-Ja Street in Japan.
The rally was unprecedented because it included cultural aspects, and because of this, the event attracted many peoples attention.
Although migrant workers have had public gatherings before, this was a large-scale workers rally that included their May Day assembly. Also, most of the previous rallies held by migrant workers tended to be scattered according to their program and assertion. As a result, there have not been that many migrant worker public assemblies that have included cultural aspects and been attended by so many people.
The assembly began a little past 3p.m., with nearly 1,500 migrant workers participating. They wrapped themselves in yellow scarves and shouted slogans like, 'Abolition of the Training System, Discrimination and Acquirment of Labor Permission'
The first part of the rally was composed of speeches given by different associations for human rights and trade union representatives. A representative of the migrant worker community, who outlined their history and struggle gave a reading from the International Joint Declaration, emphasizing its terms for the urge for peace and antiwar sentiment and the guarantee of migrant workers human rights, which includes:

- All kinds of war, causing continuous migration and refugees, stopped immediately.
- Each country to ratify the 'International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families' and fulfill the general standard of it at once.
- Each country to implement the standard of 'Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees'
- Each country to discharge illegal or overstayed migrant workers and vest them with qualification of legal stay or labour permission.
- Expedient foreign manpower policies, like Koreas Foreign Trainee Employment System and Japans Technical Trainee Employment System, to be abolished.


The second part of the rally consisted of songs performed by migrant workers, scenes and manners performance given by Han Shin and Sung Gong Hoi University students and a performance by singer, Mi-Jin Yoon.
The performances finished at around 5p.m. and the rally continued with a march to Kyung Hee Palace, which was closely watched by a large police and combat police contingent.
I have felt sorry for migrant workers participating in rallies, who act as members without showing their definite assertion. In many cases the rallies have been scattered, but now I hope that migrant workers are now able to see this rally as an opportunity to strengthen their unit, not to mention, be the subject of each rally, so as to make others aware of their problems and special situation.
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