Migrant worker shelter opens in Yeongdeungpo

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Staff reporter

Seoul City opened a shelter for migrant workers in Yeongdeungpo, Sunday.

The shelter will provide lodging and refreshments to migrant workers in the area. Located in Dangsan-dong, Yeongdeungpo District, the six-story Yeongdeungpo Migrant Worker Support Center offers temporary shelter for a maximum of seven days for migrant workers who are in need of free accommodation.

It also provides consultation on overdue wages, advice on possible infringement of human rights, and medical services as well as Korean language and basic computer classes.

“The southwestern part of the city where the new center is located is a foreign worker-concentrated area with more than 80,000 of them,” Park Dae-woo of Seoul City said.

The center opens from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and offers all its services on weekends as well.

This kind of shelter is generally provided by social organizations; the Yeongdeungpo Center is the first one operated by a municipal government.

Seoul city has six more migrant worker support centers ― in Seongdong, Geumcheon, Eunpyeong, Gangdong, Seongbuk and Yangcheon ― but without shelter facilities. More than 50,000 immigrant workers visited the centers last year.

As of 2009, according to Seoul City, there are some 330,000 international residents in the capital and 170,000 of them are migrant workers. The number of immigrant workers has shown a constant rise from 34,000 in 2007 to 108,000 in 2008.

“As the number of migrant workers, who substitute for labor shortages in small- and medium-sized enterprises, is on the increase, the city had to come up with measures to provide support for them,” the official said. “We hope the facility will assist the immigrant workers in settling in Seoul better and faster.”