The U.S. State Department yesterday released its annual Trafficking in Persons report, classifying North Korea as one of the world’s worst offenders in the subject area both for the amount of trafficking that the country is involved in and for Pyongyang’s unwillingness to address the problem in any meaningful way.
The report ranks countries into three levels (1-3), with an additional ‘watch list’ included in level 2 for those countries which are threatening to move backwards.
North Korea is cited throughout the report, not just in its own category but in reports for multiple other countries as well. The North, the report asserts, acts as a “source country” for the trafficking of men, women and children into forced labor, forced marriage and the sex industry.
“Within North Korea, forced labor is part of an established system of political repression,” it notes. “The North Korean government is directly involved in subjecting its nationals to forced labor in prison camps. North Koreans do not have a choice in the work the government assigns them and are not free to change jobs at will.”
It also points to “credible reports” of North Koreans being sent abroad for work and subjected to labor “with their movement and communications constantly under surveillance and restricted by North Korean government ‘minders’.”
“The North Korean government did not make any known attempts to protect trafficking victims during the reporting period,” the report concludes. “The government reported no efforts to identify or assist trafficking victims. Government authorities provided no discernible protection services to trafficking victims… [and] no assurances to trafficking victims that they would be exempt from being penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked.”
