1938년 일제 국가총동원법 제정 이후 조선인 강제동원과 민족차별에 대한 고찰 = A Study on the forced mobilization of Koreans and national discrimination since the enactment of the Japanese National Mobilization Law in 1938

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this paper, we analyze the ethnic discrimination resulting such as wage discrimination, poor working and living conditions, labor control and management, forced savings, and conflicts from the forced mobilization of Koreans after the National Mobilization Act. We can prove that the Japanese government violated the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 and that some of the contents of the convention that it violated were covered through the analysis of cases of ethnic discrimination against Koreans.
The Japanese government drafted a national mobilization policy, managed Japanese companies like the military under a wartime system, and focused on power production, and systematically forced the Japanese Government-General at Korea to mobilize Koreans. In addition, the working conditions for Koreans were poor, so there were more disputes with runaways, and there was racial discrimination in wages and systems with Japanese people, so there were many cases of leaving the workplace and complaints. These cases are cases of violations of Articles 4 and 6 of the Forced Labour Convention, and the Japanese government’s forced mobilization and illegal treatment of Korean workers can be seen as a violation of international law.
Enacting legislation to strengthen the mobilization of women, lowering the minimum age of women to 12, and mobilizing them to coal mines, military factories, etc. is an illegal act under international law. The ban on employment of children under the age of 14, which was prohibited by the “Factory Law” enacted by the Imperial Diet of Japan, did not apply to Korea, so there were many cases of girls being forcibly mobilized to factories. This was a case of violation of Japanese domestic and international law, and it could be said that Japan had a lot of child abuse and was an environment where women’s human rights were not good.
The Japanese government and the Government-General of Korea enacted laws to enforce forced savings for the purpose of saving and to store savings accounts in factories and workplaces, and mobilized funds during the wartime system. These cases violated the Forced Labour Convention that individuals had to be paid in cash. Although transportation, supplies, lodging, and food for performing labor could not be deducted from wages, Japanese companies thoroughly deducted them, making it difficult for workers to maintain their livelihoods. In addition, there were many cases in labor disputes where Japanese companies reduced wages or treatment conditions compared to when they applied than Japanese, or treatment was worse than expected.
More than half of the Koreans who were mobilized for wartime labor, and more than 70% in local areas, did not receive their savings such as patriotic savings, forced savings, and welfare pension insurance withdrawal allowances. The 105,151 workers who reported unpaid wages according to the announcement of the Korean government are only a small part of the Korean workers whose unpaid wages were not paid by Japanese companies. In addition, the companies concerned have not yet settled the unpaid wages of Korean workers who returned to Korea after liberation.
From 1943, Japan organized the Service Corps(仕奉隊) militarized production sites, and fundamentally blocked labor movement by implementing the conscription of local residents. The Government-General of Korea introduced the conscription system, strengthened control through existing laws, and conscripted factory and mine workers into forced labor. Forcibly mobilizing and militarizing labor at the national level and using it as military force in wartime violates the Forced Labour Convention and is also against international law and international human rights law.