Panaji, Dec 2 (IANS) Illegal migration from Bangladesh isn’t India’s headache alone.
According a senior immigration official from South Korea, now in Goa to attend the 8th Asia-Europe (ASEM) conference of Directors General of Immigration on management of migratory flows, illegal immigration from Bangladeshis is a major issue confronting them.

“There are nearly 180,000 illegal migrants in South Korea, most of them are from Bangladesh, China or the Phillipines,” Dong Hyeon Seok, Commissioner of the Korean Immigration Services (KIS), told reporters Wednesday.

Seok said that most of such migrants worked illegally in the medium and small industries sector in South Korea.

“(South) Korea is open to the world. We promote a lot of tourism. A lot of these illegal migrants enter (South) Korea as tourists and illegally stay on,” he said, adding that the issue of illegal migration had multiplied manifold over the last two decades.

Seok said that delegates from European countries at the conference were speaking in ‘vague’ terms as far as the issue relating to migration management was concerned.

“They are very vague. The issue should be narrowed down to identification of practical problems.”

Seok said that South Korea had adopted several measures to tackle the illegal migration menace.

“We have suspended visa waivers for countries with a high number of illegal aliens and sharing of information on international trend on migration and counterfeit,” Seok said.

A total of 30 delegates from 12 Asian countries and 30 delegates from 18 European countries are attending the 8th ASEM conference.