Testimony was suggested that North Korean oversea workers have been suffering in sweatshop labor conditions under complete surveillance and control without getting paid.
At the open forum on the topic of “North Korea’s manpower expeditions abroad and the human rights of workers” hosted by the North Korea Strategy Center in Seoul on April 28th, Rim Il, who served as a manager of Gwangbok Construction Company in Kuwait from November of 1996 until March of 1997, released details of the labor environment of overseas North Korean workers.
“The site where the North Korean workers were working was walled in with wire fence. When I inquired ‘why is there a barbed-wire fence,’ they answered that it was a policy of Kuwait government. However later we found out that, it was based on the request of North Korean authorities in order to prevent staff absconding from the site.”
In addition, he explained, “Since 1994, workers have had to work for 14 hours on a daily basis – without payment and, in addition to that, they receive ideology education, evaluation meetings, and lectures every day.”
He also introduced information on the real condition of female workers who are dispatched to the Southeast Asian regions, including China, as restaurant waitresses.
Rim said that they are under even more tightened surveillance, in comparison to when they are in North Korea. He explained that, “They are overworked for 365 days a year without any vacation or weekends, while receiving twice the amount of ideology education compared to the citizens in North Korea. When they walk out of the door of the restaurant, they have to be accompanied by two others.”
He stated that, “The dollars earned by North Korean overseas workers are sent to Kim Jong Il through dispatched overseas entities in the name of ‘revolution funds,’ ‘loyalty foreign currency’, and ‘party funds’.” Instead of payment, North Korean overseas workers are given coupons, with which they can purchase goods from state-run stores in Pyongyang, according to his explanation.
Regarding the reason why North Korean workers cannot decide to defect, even though they see the free world, Rim explained, “They know well that their destiny will be troubled once they are pessimistic about their circumstance or try to find the other world precisely. Therefore, they simply accept the situation as fate and live with it.”
He also said that allegedly 8,000 workers are dispatched to five complexes in the Middle East region, but it is not so easy to estimate the exact number of North Korean workers.
Kim Gwang Jin, Senior Researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy, also noted that, “North Korean sends loggers to the Siberian region of Russia, farmers to agricultural field, workers to overseas restaurants, medical and military personnel, and athletes, abroad.”
In addition, Senior Researcher Kim reported that, “Even though the intensity of work is high and they live under tough censorship, they compete against each other to go to work abroad by utilizing their personal connections and bribery since they can prepare all kinds of furniture and home appliances.”
Kim Tae San, who used to be the president of a North Korean/Czech Republic joint company, stated that, “North Korean workers, who are dispatched to foreign countries, are nothing but Kim Jong Il’s slaves who are being squeezed. In 1998, we entered the Czech Republic with 24 girls with the age group of 18~19. The largest amount of money one of them saved, during three years, was not more than 350 dollars.”
He also introduced the anecdote that, “When a Czech manager of the company observed that our workers were not fed properly and even worked during weekends, they asked me whether or not those workers were ‘criminal’.”
The beginning of North Korea’s dispatched its workers to foreign countries is the dispatch of wood cutters to former Soviet Union after the Korean War. After then, the dispatch of North Korea workers has raged through events like the aid construction in African countries since mid 1970s, dispatch of construction in Russia after the breakup of socialism, and expansion to Middle East after the Gulf War in 1991.
