North Koreans trapped in Russia in ‘state slavery’

SEOUL, South Korea – For more than 30 years, North Korea has sent workers overseas to earn money for its regime.

These workers toiled in logging camps in Russia, factories and restaurants in China, farms and shipyards in Eastern Europe.

They sweated on construction sites in the Middle East and worked as doctors in African hospitals.

They left their children or parents as hostages with them confiscated passports fearing they would flee to South Korea.

With the leader of the NorthKim Jong Un, the number of workers sent overseas to raise funds for the regime has soared into the tens of thousands, earning billions of dollars a year, according to South Korean estimates.

A resolution of Security Council The United Nations has asked countries to deport workers by the end of 2019.

But thousands still remain in China and Russia, according to former workers and a new report on human rights in North Korea released by the South’s Unification Ministry over the weekend.

With borders closed during the pandemic, many have been trapped, with no choice but to continue working for their government.

China and Russia, which have been trying to make the North a more useful partner in their rivalry with the United States, have become loopholes in implementing the UN ban, helping the North earn much-needed cash as it grapples with the aftermath of international sanctions and the pandemic.

On Thursday, the White House also accused Moscow of discussing a deal under which Pyongyang would send weapons for Russia’s war on Ukraine in exchange for food and other necessities.

“North Korea has found various ways to circumvent the sanctions and continue to send workers to Russia and China, including sending them with vvisas for students and tourists”, states the report.

Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean website, called the new report “slander and falsification”.

The report was based on a survey of more than 500 North Koreans who defected to South Korea between 2017 and 2022, providing one of the most up-to-date assessments of the human rights record of North Koreans, including those working overseas.

He did not reveal the identities of those who took the survey.

But two North Koreans who worked in Russia before defecting to the south last year confirmed key details in interviews with The New York Times.

The defectors spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear that North Korean authorities would find their relatives at home and take revenge against them.

One of the defectors, 50, worked as a construction worker in Moscow from 2017 until last year.

He and his companions lived in containers under construction or on the ground floor of apartment buildings still under construction.

Were informed in advance of the arrival of Police site for inspections so they could hide, he said.

The workers were expected to earn between $7,000 and $10,000 a year for their government.

They also had to make various “loyalty” donations, including contributing to funds allegedly raised to renovate the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, a mausoleum in Pyongyang where Kim’s father and grandfather lie.

Supervisors withheld workers’ earnings until it was time for them to return home, only giving them 300 rubles ($38) a month to buy cigarettes, said a 41-year-old defector who worked in construction on Sakhalin, an island in Russia’s Far East.

After working for years, many of these workers are left broke with no savings.

Others take home between $20,000 and $30,000, an amount unimaginable in the famine-stricken North.

North Koreans are not free to travel abroad.

The average worker’s monthly salary, just 25 cents, can barely pay for a pound of rice.

The Unification Ministry report also cited widespread human rights abuses in North Korea, such as the shot of people accused of trying to cross the border into China during the pandemic.

Privilege

Working abroad has become such a coveted privilege that bribes are often paid to officials throughout the hiring process.

Workers also bribe supervisors for extend their stay instead of being sent home.

For the Kim regime, increasingly in need of hard currency as it devotes resources to a growing nuclear arsenal, these workers are a crucial source of income. cash.

Before sending them overseas, the government scrutinizes each person’s political allegiance.

People with defected family members in the South are not allowed.

So are people who served in submarine and missile units with access to sensitive information.

Political watchdogs follow workers abroad, inspecting their letters for signs of disloyalty.

When they can get out of their dorms to go shopping, they have to go in groups of three or four so they can spy on each other.

Last week, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk YeolHe has vowed to reveal “full details” of the North’s human rights abuses as his government struggles to find a diplomatic trump card to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Human rights groups have compared the conditions faced by North Korean workers overseas to “state-sponsored slavery”.

However, there is still a huge backlog of North Koreans waiting to be shipped overseas once lockdowns are fully lifted. pandemic restrictionsaccording to the two deserters.

A big incentive workers have over their hungry compatriots is enough food.

They were also exposed to the internet and watched South Korean dramas out of sight of their supervisors.

After a life in the totalitarian north, the 50-year-old defector said the smartphone he secretly bought while working overseas helped him realize that North Koreans lived like “frogs trapped in a deep well.”

Now in Seoul, he is recovering from a recent cancer operation.

He said he wants to find construction jobs in the South so he can save enough money to help support his family.

Her smartphone screensaver showed a photo of her smiling teenage daughter, who still lives in North Korea.

c.2023 The New York Times Society