Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are forced to toil for practically nonexistent wages, reports The Korea Herald.
The North Korean government exploits its army of 200,000 to 400,000 slaves to the tune of $975 million in unpaid wages annually, Open North Korea revealed after consulting with 18 defectors.
Pyongyang “recruits” workers through its dolgyeokdae system. This system primarily targets orphans and underprivileged youth. The government uses these workers to complete state construction projects, and the monthly salaries of the laborers are equivalent to a few bowls of noodles.
“This is one of the odd systems of exploiting labor,” Open North Korea said.
A former “storm trooper,” as these laborers are called, said that he worked from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. building railways, roads, power plants, and other infrastructure, reports The Korea Times.
Workers were often made to work through the night on projects that needed to be completed before important events, ex-laborer Park Kyung-ho said.
“I was not paid at all during my days at a first dolgyeokdae, and in the second one, I was made to carry some 75 kilograms of bricks all the way to the 20th floor every day, but with my pay, I could only afford two candies or two packs of sweet potatoes,” Kyung-ho explained. He defected in 2009 after working for three years at a state-run construction site.
The workers operate in groups of about 10. Men and women are both required to work on physically demanding projects.
Kim Jong Un has launched several major construction projects since he took power. The working conditions at the building sites for these projects are reportedly abysmal. “Beatings and safety hazards were commonly seen,” said one defector. Deaths from lack of training, starvation, and poor equipment are also regular occurrences. For a big project in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, workers were reportedly given methamphetamines to curb hunger and keep them awake.
Soldiers are often forced to serve on construction teams for years during their mandatory 10 years of military service. Mandatory military service does not violate the forced labor standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO), but mobilizing troops specifically for construction purposes does, the Open North Korea report said.
“We will look into the report in detail,” head of the U.N. human rights office in Seoul Ahn Youn-kyo told The Korea Herald. “In the dolgyeokdae system, there are sources of rights violations given the discrimination and violence that occur there,” he noted.
The North Korean government also sends tens of thousands of “state-sponsored slaves” abroad and then confiscates their wages.
“The international community should pay attention to enslavement of North Koreans both at home and abroad and take measures accordingly,” the Open North Korea report explained.
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