Report Accuses North Korea of Exporting Slave Labor

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Report Accuses North Korea of Exporting Slave Labor

Youmi Kim

March 12, 2015 3:52 AM

SEOUL— A new report by a South Korean human rights organization details abuses suffered by North Korean workers who are sent to work outside the country, but still often live in harsh, prison-like conditions.

The group said the Kim Jong Un regime confiscates 90 percent of the workers' wages, bringing in billions of dollars for a government that is subjected to tough international sanctions.

The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul based its report on interviews with 20 North Korean defectors, most of whom were dispatched to work in nine countries, including China, Russia and Kuwait.

One defector described the experience of working abroad as “harsher than the life in prison camps in North Korea.”

Previously at DU:

North Korean Laborers In Qatar Working As 'State-Sponsored Slaves'

Another link:

North Korea Exports Forced Laborers for Profit, Rights Groups Say

Asia Pacific
By CHOE SANG-HUNFEB. 19, 2015

....
Tens of thousands of North Koreans work long hours for little or no pay, toiling in Chinese factories or Russian logging camps, digging military tunnels in Myanmar, building monuments for African dictators, sweating at construction sites in the Middle East or aboard fishing boats off Fiji, according to former workers and human rights researchers.

For decades, North Korea has been accused of sending workers abroad and of confiscating most of their wages. But in the years since Kim Jong-un took over as leader, human rights researchers say, the program has expanded rapidly as international sanctions have squeezed the country’s other sources of foreign currency, like illicit trading in missile parts.

A 2012 study by the North Korea Strategy Center, a group in Seoul that works with North Korean defectors, and the private Korea Policy Research Center estimated that 60,000 to 65,000 North Koreans were working in more than 40 countries, providing the state with $150 million to $230 million a year. That number has since grown to 100,000, human rights researchers said.

“North Korea is exploiting their labor and salaries to fatten the private coffers of Kim Jong-un,” said Ahn Myeong-chul, head of NK Watch, a human rights group in Seoul. “We suspect that Kim is using some of the money to buy luxury goods for his elite followers and finance the recent building boom in Pyongyang that he has launched to show off his leadership.”

Cue the apologists in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ....

[Fred Sanders]

1. Report Accuses South Korea of Importing Slave Labor. As well.