“In the summer, I worked 17 to 18 hours a day. I returned to my lodging around midnight and slept for about five hours. I rested while eating lunch and snacks. There was one day off per month.”
This is the testimony of a North Korean defector who was once a laborer dispatched overseas by North Korea. Overseas workers, considered a key foreign currency source for Kim Jong Un’s regime, must pay the state 80-90% of their wages.
On a Tuesday afternoon, the Seoul United Nations Office for Human Rights released a report titled Forced Labor by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Press Center.
The report was based on 183 interviews conducted from 2015 to 2023 with victims of forced labor currently living abroad and witnesses who observed the situation.
The report categorized North Korean forced labor into six types: labor within detention facilities, jobs assigned by the state, military conscription, utilization of revolutionary assault teams, mobilization of labor, and overseas dispatch for earning foreign currency.
The report pointed out that North Koreans are exploited through a wide-ranging and multi-layered system of forced labor that operates for the benefit of the state rather than the individual.
The report expressed severe concern about the existence of detention facilities, stating, “Victims of forced labor are systematically forced to work under the threat of physical violence and inhumane conditions,” emphasizing that the widespread exploitation within prisons is a crime against humanity and enslavement.
It also pointed out that “North Korean residents who have completed school education or military service do not have the freedom to choose their jobs or form labor unions. They are threatened with detention if they do not go to work.”
According to the report, one defector testified, “We have to do business because we do not get anything. But we could be detained if we do not go to the assigned job for three days.”
Another defector who worked at a research institute claimed about revolutionary education, “In the past, it was once or twice a week, but after President Moon Jae-in met General Secretary Kim Jong Un, it increased to three times a week. We were taught that both South Korea and the United States are enemies and nothing will change.”
The report urged North Korea to abolish its forced labor system and cease all forms of slavery immediately. It also recommended that responsible international organizations investigate and prosecute those suspected of committing international crimes, and the UN Security Council should refer this situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC).