In Korea, migrant workers are workers in primary industries, a declining sector. Compared with migrant workers in other industries such as manufacturing, construction and services, they not only are in a worse position but are fully exposed as foreigners to racial discrimination in a partly closed and conservative Korean society. The various kinds of discrimination they experience, including racial discrimination, are sometimes encouraged by laws and institutions and sometimes justified by custom or culture. Because of the Labor Standards Act, which has exception clauses for these workers, and the employment permit system, which restricts changing jobs, they are discriminated against compared with other migrant workers, and amid practices that mistreat workers and a culture of deep contempt and prejudice toward foreigners they suffer forced labor, verbal abuse and assault, sexual violence and invasions of privacy.

Typical human rights violations against migrant workers include, for industrial trainees (D-3), 'minimum wage violations, unpaid wages, compulsory savings, industrial accidents, verbal abuse and assault, control of private life, confiscation of identity documents, sexual harassment, huge recruitment fees and abuses by the small business federation and post-placement management companies'; for low-skilled workers (E-9), 'unpaid wages, breach of contract, abuses by companies due to restrictions on changing employers, industrial accidents, verbal abuse and assault'; and for undocumented (overstaying) workers, 'unpaid wages, severance pay, industrial accidents, verbal abuse and assault.'

For marriage migrants, the stigma of a broken marriage after divorce continues to torment foreign spouses. If marital problems could lead to domestic violence, divorce may be seen as a solution. In interviews with migrant brides, they named language barriers and cultural differences, family relations and financial difficulties, and even petty quarrels as common factors that sour marital relations and create misunderstandings. Such misunderstandings then make family relationships hard to repair. Social integration and discrimination make a difficult and complicated path for migrant spouses. Children of Korean and migrant parents often face subtle but conscious rejection in being treated equally in Korean society.

To add: Korea joined the Refugee Convention in 1992 and began accepting refugee applications under the Immigration Act in 1994, and a stand-alone Refugee Act was enacted in 2012 and took effect in July 2013. The paper's 'Refugee Act enacted in 1994' should be corrected on this point, and its first sentence describing migrant workers as primary industry workers is best read as a description of migrant workers in agriculture and livestock. The employment permit system took effect in 2004, and the industrial trainee system was merged into it in 2007. In September 2011 the Constitutional Court held that the former limit on how many times migrant workers could change workplaces did not violate their freedom to choose a job (2007Hun-Ma1083). The paper's refugee statistics are as of 2015, and the numbers of applicants and recognized refugees have since risen sharply.