1 In the past seven months, Anil Dhakal hasn't called or written to his family in Nepal. He can't bear to tell them the truth.
2 'They think I'm OK,' said Dhakal, who until recently worked at a furniture factory. He claims he was beaten repeatedly for protesting unpaid wages and mistreatment before he escaped what he calls 'hell.'
3 At least for now, his dream of saving enough money to finish college has collapsed.
4 Dhakal, 22, is one of an estimated 84,000 foreigners -- from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal and other poorer neighboring nations -- lured here by tales of higher pay.
5 Only 32,000 are working legally under a 'technical training' program set up by the government to provide workers for labor-short industries. Most others overstayed tourist visas and are employed illegally.
6 The foreign workers fill a hole left by South Koreans who, with a rising standard of living, have abandoned low-paying '3-D' jobs -- ones that are dirty, difficult and dangerous.
7 Many of the foreign workers, legal or illegal, are exploited by employers who demand long hours of backbreaking work, often for less-than-promised wages.
8 The problem was widely publicized last month when 13 Nepalese workers left their factories, pitched a tent in front of a Catholic cathedral in central Seoul and began a sit-down strike.
9 Shivering in sub-freezing temperatures, Binod Adhikari, 20, said he was forced to work 11 hours a day, seven days a week for dlrs 210 a month. Only after protests was he given Sundays off.
10 The sit-down strike has prompted South Koreans to take a long look at themselves.
11 It wasn't so many years ago that thousands of South Koreans left for the United States, Japan, Germany and other wealthy nations as low-paid workers and returned with tales of unfair treatment and prejudice.
12 'We are humiliated,' said an auto union leader who visited the Nepalese to offer his sympathy. 'You are walking the same ground we strode only a few years ago.'
13 Shelter for Foreign Workers, a South Korean advocacy group, estimates that about 10,000 foreigners have been injured and several killed in work-related accidents in the past eight years.
14 Kim Jae-kum, head of the shelter, said only 128 people have received compensation, although South Korean law guarantees equal protection for foreign workers, legal or illegal.
15 The problem, Kim says, is bad government policies.
16 Companies are fined if their trainees leave to take higher-paying, illegal work elsewhere, so many firms confiscate trainees' passports, limit excursions outside the factory and lock dormitories from the outside.
17 But trainees remain eager to find more lucrative jobs to pay off as much as dlrs 2,000 in fees they paid to brokers to arrange their passage here. The illegal status of such jobs in turn puts the workers at greater risk of exploitation by employers.
18 South Korean newspapers have urged the government to do more to protect the foreign workers.
19 'If we cannot remember the times when we were tadpoles, we will never grow and transform into frogs,' the influential newspaper Hangook Ilbo said in an editorial.
20 Police are investigating reports of mistreatment, and the Labor Ministry has promised to give foreign workers greater legal rights.
21 But it's unclear whether the promised reforms will be strong enough to force employers to improve treatment of foreigners. Although South Korea is shifting from a low- to high-technology nation, much of its exports still rely on cheap labor.
22 'Korea is rich, developed . but it is wrong,' says Adhikari, who reports he doesn't have a single positive memory of his six-month stay.
23 His gaunt, tired face breaks into a sunny smile as he says, 'To go home, yes, happy. Very happy.'

In the past seven months , Anil Dhakal hasn ' t called or written to his family in Nepal . He can ' t bear to tell them the truth .
can ' t bear to tell them the truth
Why is he in such despair?