The Use of Forced Labor in North Korea whose victims are prisoners, soldiers and citizens abroad, “deeply institutionalized” in the country and in some cases borders on slavery, a crime against humanity, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.

An 84-page document by the UN Human Rights Office, based on interviews conducted over the past decade with 183 North Koreans who fled the country and now live in South Korea, suggests details of this exploitation in Kim’s isolated regime.

“They were forced to work in intolerable conditions, often in dangerous areas, no salary, free choice, possibility to resign, protection, health care, “time for breaks, food and accommodation,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk summed up when presenting the report.

The workers were also under constant surveillance. They were often beaten and in the case of women (the main evidence of forced labor in pre-trial detention centers) They were often victims of sexual violence, the Austrian High Commissioner emphasized.

The report identifies various types of forced labor in North Korea, such as taxes on prisons and other detention centersthose that affected employees whose work was entrusted to the state (which was very common in the communist regime), or those that were observed among army soldiers.

There is also a type of exploitation that violates human rights in citizens sent abroad to send foreign currency to the regime, called up for special mobilization or members of so-called “shock brigades”, usually in agriculture and construction.

Exploited prisoners

Some of the most striking evidence in the report comes from More than a hundred women were sentenced to forced labor after being forcibly repatriated after illegally crossing a border (usually the one separating China and North Korea, although the report does not specify).

Once caught in human trafficking networks, which sometimes force them into prostitution or forced marriage, they are repatriated and detained. They are often subjected to sexual and physical violence, sometimes forced abortions. and denial of medical and hygiene services.

Victims held in prisons, re-education camps and other detention centres describe harsh living and working conditions in agricultural, industrial and other jobs, where they were often forced to meet daily production quotas and If they did not comply, they were beaten or deprived of food.

“I was sent to grow corn, cabbage, radishes… there was no equipment, so “Seven or eight of us pulled a cart, which is usually used to transport oxen.” says one of these women.

Another detainee, who was sent to construction work, said in a report that He was so hungry that he ate weeds and grass, which made him feel sick, and another, assigned to a group that carried bags of cement, said that they did not have masks, they were constantly breathing in cement dust and “barely breathing.”

In the North Korean army, the report adds, soldiers, who in many cases have to serve for ten years or more, are often also forced to work in agriculture or constructionin hazardous conditions and without adequate health and safety measures.

A former nurse interviewed for the report said that Many of the soldiers he treated had symptoms of malnutrition. which in the worst case degenerated into tuberculosis.

Leave the country and continue to exploit

Abroad, North Korean citizens, who often enjoy certain social privileges, are required to donate 90% of their profits to the state, in sectors such as those already mentioned (agriculture, construction), although they also exist in medicine or the hotel industry.

To maintain control over these citizens abroad, their passports are confiscated. They are constantly monitored and usually live in very poor conditions.with virtually no free time or contact with their families in North Korea, the report says.

In general, the regime controlled by Kim Jong-un, inherited from his father and grandfather, controls and exploits its citizensThe UN study concludes that “through a vast system of forced labour at various levels” aimed at the interests of the state rather than citizens.

A system in which every North Korean, after completing his education or military service, is assigned to a job without choice or the possibility of forming a union, and where he lives under threat of detention if he does not go to work, although sometimes he doesn’t get paid for it.