In a report based on 183 interviews with victims and witnesses of forced labor who managed to escape from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and are now living abroad, OHCHR quoted a testimony from someone who said that if the daily work quota was not met, the workers were beaten and their food rations were cut.
“These people are forced to work under unbearable conditions – often in dangerous sectors without pay, “Freedom of choice, the ability to leave, protection, medical care, leisure time, food and shelter,” said OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell.
“They are placed under constant surveillance, regularly beaten and women are constantly exposed to the risk of sexual violence..”
The UN report on the DPRK – better known as North Korea – identifies six types of forced labour, including detention work, state-assigned jobs, military conscription and the so-called “Shock Brigades”, where groups are forced to perform “hard manual labour”, often in construction and agriculture.
The greatest problems occur in detention facilities, where victims are systematically forced to work, under threat of physical violence and in inhumane conditions.
The report finds that the widespread use of forced labor in prisons in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea may amount to slavery, a crime against humanity.
North Koreans are “controlled and exploited through an extensive and multi-layered system of forced labor” that serves the interests of the state rather than the people, the report’s authors conclude.
Put under pressure
According to the authors of the OHCHR report, military conscripts must serve a minimum of 10 years and are often forced to work in agriculture or construction.
A former nurse at a military hospital who treated soldiers during her mandatory service described their work as “hard and dangerous, without adequate health and safety measures.” She noted that many soldiers, weakened and tired, became malnourished and contracted tuberculosis.
Those recruited into the “Shock Brigades” are often forced to remain in place for months or years with little or no pay. Women, often the main sources of income for families, are particularly hard hit by these mobilizations, the UN human rights report noted.
sent abroad
It has been alleged that the DPRK sends selected citizens abroad to work and earn foreign currency for the state, confiscating up to 90 percent of their earnings.
Once they get to work, these North Koreans live “under constant surveillance and with confiscated passports…in cramped spaces, with almost no free time and extremely limited opportunities to connect with their families.”
The institutionalized labor system begins in school, the report noted, with children forced to perform tasks such as cleaning riverbanks or planting trees. “From a young age, you have to make yourself available to serve,” one witness said.
The UN report calls on the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to “abolish the use of forced labor and end all forms of slavery”.
It calls on the international community to investigate and prosecute those suspected of committing international crimes.
It also calls on the UN Security Council to present the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC Treaty).
