South Korea denies labour deal with Malawi: ‘No official request’
South Korea’s government has denied that it agreed with the Malawian government to receive as many tens of thousands of jobless youths to work in the Asian nation’s factories and farms.
The Malawi Labour Minister Eunice Makangala told Parliament that PresidentJoyce Banda, struck the deal to export up to 100,000 young workers during a visit to South Korea in February.
But director at the Africa Division of South Korea’s foreign affairs ministry Moon Sung Hwan has denied the claims.
“Our government has not received any official request from Malawi that they want to send their workers to our country,” he told Bloomberg.
The plan to export labour has attracted controversy with the opposition lawmakers claimed it amounted to slave labour.
“We always cry about brain-drain and encourage Malawians in the diaspora to come back home and yet here we are exporting the cream of our labour force abroad. It doesn’t make sense at all,” MP for DPP Steven Kamwendo told parliament on Tuesday.
But Malawi government rejected opposition criticism saying “it is not modern-day slavery.”
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