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UN to investigate slave-like conditions of North Korean migrant workers

At least 20,000 workers said to be affected by Kim regime's control of migrant salaries
UN to investigate slave-like conditions of North Korean migrant workers
Published: March 17, 2015 10:44 AM GMT
Updated: March 16, 2015 11:44 PM GMT

The UN special envoy on human rights in North Korea said on Monday he would investigate allegations that thousands of North Koreans are working in slave-like conditions overseas.

The UN’s Marzuki Darusman put the figure at as many as 20,000 migrants, a figure that remains well below the estimate of Seoul-based NK Watch, which has recently said that up to 150,000 North Koreans could be working in 40 countries.

“The initial information indicates that [the] majority would be in China and Russia,” Darusman told a news briefing after addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Following his update on the rights situation in North Korea, Pyongyang’s diplomat Kim Yong-ho accused Darusman of overstepping his mandate in trying to effect “regime change”.

“It is none other than the ‘special rapporteur’ that has been wandering here and there under manipulation of the hostile forces, in order to realize and represent their ill-minded political objectives,” he said.

The latest update on rights in North Korea noted no signs of improvement in the country, calling for action on a host of abuses including international abductions by state agents.

Darusman’s plans to look into abuses against North Koreans overseas represents the latest front in a “multi-track strategy” aimed at piling pressure on Kim Jung-un’s regime after the UN Security Council accepted the country’s rights situation on its permanent agenda in December.

Rights groups in South Korea have in recent years conducted research alleging significant abuses against North Korean migrants under the control of state minders.

As much as US$3 billion ends up in state coffers because the government handles migrant salaries, according to NK Watch.

In a report released in late 2012, Seoul-based North Korea Strategy Center (NKSC) conducted dozens of interviews with North Koreans working in China, Russia and the Middle East, documenting the hardships they faced, albeit a better situation compared to back home.

“While you work you could have an accident or you could even die,” said one unnamed North Korean migrant interviewed working in Russia. “Even if it was dangerous, you could work and earn money so it was good. It wasn’t like you were going to starve either. At the time there wasn’t a lot to eat. I would sell wool pulp and exchange it for some food. That is the way we survived.”

By tracing siphoned-off salaries, the NKSC report linked the flow of money directly to slush funds controlled by North Korea’s young leader Kim.

Kang Chol-hwan, executive director of NKSC and one of only a few North Koreans reported to have escaped the country’s gulags, told ucanews.com that host countries had a responsibility to tackle abuses.

“Addressing the human rights violations infringed on North Korean overseas labor workers, including their restrictions to leave their working complexes and receiving fair salaries, can stop one of the major forms of sustainability of the Kim regime,” he said.

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