Lawyer helps foreigners with back wages
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Lawyer Jeong Hye-young
By Lee Kyung-min
Lawyer Jeong Hye-young, 30, said providing legal consultation to foreigners is one of her duties that make her truly happy.
Since 2009, she has helped foreigners with the two most common legal issues for them ― divorces for immigrant wives, and back wages for factory workers. She has dealt with numerous such cases while volunteering at the Korea Legal Aid Corporation, and Seoul Global Center run by Seoul Metropolitan Government.
“People’s lives are instantly ruined if they do not receive their monthly paycheck, especially for foreigners many of whom are day laborers. That is why I feel so strongly about helping them,” she said.
Last year, she helped three foreigners from Southeast Asia who had not received their paychecks for more than one year, after their employer, a subcontractor for contact lens manufacturer Bescon went bankrupt.
She filed a court injunction against the company that acquired the troubled subcontractor, and made it pay the due amount to the three foreigners.
“Fortunately, the acquirer was decent enough to agree to pay them. However, if the employer deliberately delays the payment, the prospect of receiving the money gets remote, making many workers to give up,” she said.
In other cases, she helped battered migrant wives who were trapped in vicious cycle ― a life with an alcoholic, gambling, wife-beating husband.
“In one case, I consulted a Vietnamese woman in her late 20s, who was subject to horrendous physical abuse from her husband. I helped her file for a divorce and retain custody of her one-year-old.”
For divorce, making sure that husbands pay alimony is the top priority, because women without jobs are rendered incapable of raising the baby, she said.
“Usually mothers, compared to fathers, are far more strongly attached to their babies, never inclined to easily give up the custody. But without stable income, they have no way to raise the baby,” she said.
In hopes that such experience would help those in need, Jeong volunteered for the Village Lawyer System for Foreigners, last month, set up by the Ministry of Justice and the Korean Bar Association (KBA) to help foreigners who have limited legal access due to the language barrier and a lack of information.
“I truly feel that volunteer work is the most heart-warming idea that makes me happy,” she said.
The Village Lawyer System for Foreigners is being provided on a trial basis. The interpretation service is provided in 20 different languages. Any foreigner residing in Korea, regardless of their legal status, is eligible to use the service by calling 1345.