Mentally ill Kyrgyz sent back with no due care

By Kim Se-jeong

The National Human Rights Commission is looking into allegations that a mentally ill Kyrgyz woman was deported without receiving proper care care from immigration officials.

The inquiry came after a group of local NGOs filed a petition with the commission on March 20 to examine the case, calling for measures to provide adequate assistance for foreign workers here.

According to the Advocates for Public Interest Law (APIL), the Kyrgyz woman, identified as Tatiana, arrived in Korea in 2001 and worked illegally at a factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, until May of last year when she began showing symptoms of mental illness, which included abnormal behavior in public.

Tatiana was taken to a nearby mental hospital by her employer and police in June before being sent to the Hwaseong Immigration Process Center for deportation.

This center is where illegal immigrants stay before being sent home.

She never saw a doctor or a counselor during her stay at the center.

Tatiana was deported on July 3 with $7,000 in hand.

In Moscow where she was supposed to take a transfer flight home, she did not show up and went missing for six days. When found at the airport, she had bruises and injuries over her body and her money was gone.

“Korean immigration authorities should have arranged help in Moscow so that she could catch the connecting flight safely, because they knew that she had mental illness,” a lawyer from APIL said. “This case shows Korean immigration authorities’ irresponsibility.”

The immigration authorities only said they acted according to what they were instructed to do.

The lawyer said, “Regardless of their status, all foreign workers have rights to be respected and get fair treatment.”

“We want to raise awareness of the problem in which these people in the deportation process are deprived of their rights, and to bring about changes in how they are treated.”