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SPOILER WARNING: This article may contain some light spoilers to Squid Game (2021) and heavy themes about abuse and exploitation. Read ahead at your own caution.
The 2021 Netflix original Korean drama series Squid Game (2021) follows the story of debt-ridden individuals from all around South Korea who compete in a series of survival games in order to win prize money to pay off their debts. The series as a whole demonstrates a commentary on social and economic struggles; however, the character of Ali Abdul specifically unveils a sizeable humanitarian issue that has been largely ignored by the general public and has heavily affected poor communities for decades: the exploitation of migrant workers.
What Is The Squid Games?
The Squid Games are a series of games where players have the chance to earn 45.6 billion won or around 39 million United States dollars. The game recruits people from South Korea who are poor and living in incredible amounts of debt and makes them contestants in the games. After the players are transported to the game site, they make the contestants play popular South Korean children’s games, such as Red Light, Green Light, or the Dalgona candy game. There are three rules to the Squid Games: first, a player is not allowed to stop playing. Second, a player who refuses to play will be eliminated. Third, the games may be terminated if the majority agrees. The “disqualification” that the rules refer to, which happens if a player stops playing or loses the game they are playing, means death.
As more players are disqualified, the more money the remaining players get to win since the cash prize is to be equally distributed amongst winners of the games. The Squid Game group that the series follows voted to terminate the games, but as many of the players returned to their typical lives and realized how awful their original lives were and how much they needed that prize money, most of them returned back to the games. The game is watched by VIP elites, who are implied to be powerful individuals, such as business owners or government officials, who watch in delight at the suffering and plight of those who had the misfortune of being recruited into the games. The series is a commentary on how the top 1% exploit and take advantage of the working class, which is portrayed through the players’ backstories and how they ended up in the Squid Games, the way the players consciously risk their lives for the chance of having a normal life, and how the privileged group of VIP watchers is amused at the players’ pain and suffering.
What Is Migrant Worker Exploitation?
Labor exploitation, as defined by the International Labour Office, includes the following: abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, isolation, physical and/or sexual violence, intimidation or threats, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive working and living conditions, and excessive overtime. Examples of these indications include usual working hours above eight hours, being paid below the federal minimum wage, dangerous or hazardous working conditions, lying about or failing to deliver the job descriptions stated to their workers, and more. (( “ILO Indicators of Forced Labour.” International Labour Office. )).
Migrant workers are people who migrate either nationally or internationally in search of work, often taking on agricultural or industrial jobs. Since many migrant workers who travel internationally are often not aware of the social customs, language, and laws of their new environment and come from poor backgrounds, they are unfortunately vulnerable to exploitation by foreign companies with the following ways for cheap labor.
South Korea’s Migrant Working Conditions
In South Korea, where Squid Game takes place, many companies seek migrant worker employment from all around Asia in order to account for the country’s labor shortages. (( Kuhn, Anthony. “As Workforce Ages, South Korea Increasingly Depends on Migrant Labor.” NPR, 2 June 2021. )). However, due to a lack of labor protection laws for these workers, many of them are paid $1300-$1600 a month, well below South Korea’s minimum wage, work an estimated 10 to 15 hours a day, and are given very minimal breaks, with only two Saturdays off every month. (( Tong-Hyung, Kim. “In South Korea, Asian Migrant Workers Face Exploitation at Work, in Absence of Labour Law Protection-World News.” Firstpost, 4 Mar. 2021. )). Working conditions are also poor, with the Cambodian Ambassador to South Korea, Long Dimanche, estimating that approximately seven Cambodian migrant workers and hundreds of Thai migrant workers die each year in South Korea from untreated medical concerns and work or traffic accidents. (( David, Sen. “About Seven Cambodian Workers Die in South Korea a Year.” Khmer Times, 24 Dec. 2020. )).
Horror stories amongst South Korean migrant workers include a fisherman from Timor-Leste, who claims to have worked anywhere from 15 to 20-hour workdays at the height of anchovy fishing season. Despite his long hours of working, he only earned 2 million won ($1765) a month, which he only found out very shortly before publicly telling his story because his employer hid his bank records. He also was not given proper meals and was only fed bread and Choco Pies, a popular Korean pastry treat, while on the job. (( Hyun-Ju, Ock. “Migrant Workers Denounce ‘Modern-Day Slavery’ in Korea.” The Korea Herald, 21 Oct. 2020. )). As can be inferred, these conditions fall under many of the International Labour Office’s indicators of labor exploitation, such as the withholding of payment, abusive working or living conditions, and excessive overtime. These conditions mentioned above are similar to how Abdul was treated by his employer, with overlaps such as the poor working conditions and low pay. The exploitation methods used by these businesses also align painfully well with how Abdul was treated in the series.
International Migrant Working Conditions
This problem isn’t only prevalent in South Korea as well. In the United States, migrant workers are often trafficked and forced to work under similarly poor conditions in fear of being deported if they don’t comply due to the nation’s strict citizenship and immigration laws. (( Buckley, Chrissey. “Forced Labor in the United States: A Contemporary Problem in Need of a Contemporary Solution.” Topical Research Digest: Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery. )).
In Qatar, migrant workers were hired to build the stadium that the country will use to host the 2022 World Cup, but due to the country’s Kalafa system, those workers had their passports and phones confiscated, and were also forced to work long hours under poor conditions with low pay, with their employer controlling when they were allowed to leave the country. (( “Reality Check: Migrant Workers’ Rights in Qatar.” Amnesty International, 18 May 2021. )). These working conditions also exhibit more of the International Labour Office’s red flags that have not already been covered, such as intimidation and threats, restriction of movement, and retention of identity documents, and are clear examples of worker exploitation. Overall, migrant workers from all around the globe, unfortunately, face the reality of non-existent labor protection laws and legal exploitation of their work.
The Corporate Exploitation
Along with all that, just like Abdul’s company, the companies that exploit migrant workers the most are the ones that are the most well-off and should therefore be easily able to pay their workers fairly. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, South Korean based tech giant Samsung, a company that is currently worth an estimated $300 billion, is a significant offender of treating their migrant workers poorly, with Samsung being responsible for a worker death at their Thai Nguyen plant that the company states were a result of overworking and chemical exposure. (( “Report Finds Exploitative Working Conditions in Samsung Factories across Asia.” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 23 June 2019. )).
Another large offending company is Nestle, a company worth an estimated $93 billion, where a 2019 Washington Post interview with a Nestle cacao plant worker, who was 15 at the time of the interview, claimed he traveled from the African country of Burkina Faso to the Ivory Coast in hopes of seeking an education, only to be labor trafficked in a cacao plantation and forced to work long hours on little to no pay. (( Whoriskey, Peter, and Rachel Siegel. “Hershey, Nestle and Mars Won’t Promise Their Chocolate Is Free of Child Labor.” The Washington Post, 5 June 2019. )). Due to the aforementioned lack of labor laws that protect migrant workers in many countries, large corporations tend to exploit this lack of labor protections in order to cut costs and receive cheap labor.
Non-Labor Based Migrant Worker Exploitation
Just like how The Squid Games exploited Abdul’s living situation, many migrant workers, who are often desperate for money due to their low earnings, are often exploited through non-labor means as well. According to the Italian book Vite a Pedere, the organ trafficking industry has begun to target migrant workers, refugees, and those who live in poverty to have their organs harvested and sold in the black market. (( “Migrant Increasingly Victims of Organ Trafficking, Book Reveals.” InfoMigrants, 23 Apr. 2019. )). Businesses with illegal business models, such as a pyramid or Ponzi schemes, also are targeting migrant workers with false promises of wealth if they invest in their companies.
Recent examples of this occurring include U.S.-based companies 1st Million LLC and The Smart Partners LLC, which targeted African immigrants as potential investors and took advantage of their ancestry and religious affiliations, and guaranteed that investors will earn between 6% to 42% in returns. (( “SEC Charges Ponzi Scheme Targeting African Immigrants.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 28 Aug. 2020. )). These instances are not labor-based, so their exploitation assessment would be different than exploitation that is labor-oriented, but they do fall under the International Labour Organization’s abuse of vulnerability indicator due to how they took advantage of the migrant workers’ financial, racial, and religious backgrounds for profit.
Squid Games’ (2021) Ali Abdul
In Squid Game, Ali Abdul is one of the supporting characters, a South Korean migrant worker from Pakistan who works at an assembly factory. (( Dong-hyuk, Hwang, director. Squid Game, Netflix, 2021. )). He is shown to be entirely unaware of typical South Korean social customs, as he talks to others in formal Korean. He refers to characters like Sang-woo with formal honorifics, such as “Sir,” even when he’s not in a traditional setting or the person he’s talking to is not his superior. In his workplace, Abdul’s employer refuses to pay Abdul throughout the six months he worked there and lies about the company being in debt and not having enough money to pay him.
However, it is heavily implied that their company makes a large sum of money, as shown in the sizable money envelope on the employer’s desk. Abdul also has severe injuries due to his factory’s poor working conditions, as he is shown missing two fingers on one of his hands and even claimed he could not have his injuries treated at a hospital due to his employer not paying him. He ends up entering the Squid Game to pay off his debts from living in South Korea without any money and to earn enough money for his, his wife’s, and his infant child’s survival.
Ali Abdul: A Depiction Of Migrant Worker Exploitation
It is clear that Abdul’s working conditions fall under the International Labour Office’s indicators of labor exploitation and line up with the stories mentioned of migrant worker exploitation. He works under dangerous conditions, as shown by his hand injury. He does not get paid anything due to his boss’s lies, which fall under the deception, withholding of wages, and abusive working and living conditions indicators. His employer also took advantage of his previously established lack of knowledge on South Korean culture and infrastructure to use him for free labor, which falls under the abuse of vulnerability indicator. The Squid Games also exploited his financial situation. They targeted him because he lived in debt due to not being paid by his employer, which falls under the debt bondage indicator. His story also parallels the previous experiences of actual victims of migrant worker exploitation, which exhibited the same or similar negative qualities as Abdul’s conditions.
The large corporations that exploit the weak may not only be represented through the company Abdul works for but also through the VIPs at the Squid Game facility, who are portrayed as influential individuals in the Squid Game universe that joyously watch and are entertained and amused by the deaths of many innocent people through the games.
Abdul’s character throughout Squid Game unfortunately accurately aligns with the real experiences of migrant workers from across the globe, whether it’s through the labor or non-labor-based exploitation he faced throughout the series.
Squid Games’ (2021) Ali Abdul In A Wider Context
Ali Abdul’s realistic backstory of being financially exploited as a Pakistani immigrant in South Korea in Squid Game sheds light on the poor working conditions of migrant workers throughout South Korea and worldwide and the ways migrant workers are exploited through labor-related or non-labor related means. Furthermore, the Netflix series’ major worldwide success introduces crucial South Korean social issues that are not very well known outside of South Korea to an international audience, such as the country’s own history of mistreating its migrant workers. It spreads awareness of the widespread exploitation of the working class by large corporations in capitalist economies globally.
