Brutal punishment for laborers caught fleeing in Russia


North Korean laborers working at an apartment construction site in the Ussuriisk region north of Vladivostok,
Russia. At Russian worksites, North Korean laborers are regularly mobilized in small groups, but make
up a minority of the workforce.When Daily NK approached the workers, they became visibly concerned
 and cautious. However, in response to questions in Korean, the two laborers answered
 that they both hailed from Pyongyang. 

Last month, Daily NK dispatched a special coverage team
overseas to investigate reports of human rights abuses involving North Korean
laborers in China, Russia, and Mongolia. Daily NK’s special coverage team
learned that some laborers dispatched to Russia to work were allegedly caught
after an escape attempt and severely punished. The State Security Department [SSD] officials charged with monitoring the site responded to the incident by
torturing the escapees, before forcibly repatriating them to North Korea. 

According to testimony given to Daily NK at the end of the
month by North Korean laborers in Russia, escapees who are apprehended face
extremely ruthless punishment in order to deter future attempts by others. In
one such example, a laborer had his Achilles tendon severed by the authorities.
In another case, the laborers were forced to lie down and had their legs broken
with a construction excavator. Upon their return to North Korea, these
handicapped laborers and their families are sent to political prison camps.

One laborer sent to the coastal province of Khabarovsk,
Russia, at the beginning of the year testified to Daily NK, “Previously, a
worker fled from the worksite and hid out in a nearby church, where he was
later discovered and caught. The SSD agents used a huge excavator to crush him.
He was denied proper medical attention thereafter and became disabled. It’s
impossible for these SSD agents to forgive an escape attempt and so they made
an example out of him.” 

He continued, “The last time we saw our colleague in
question, he was skin and bones, injured, and had nothing but a simple bandage
on his leg. He was forcibly repatriated in that condition. This is not an
unusual or rare occurrence. Some laborers who try to escape have their Achilles
tendon cut, and others are beaten with pieces of lumber. These kinds of escape
attempts happen from time to time, but even if the laborers manage to flee, it
is very difficult for them to survive. They have no choice but to wander
about.”

“However, since this is Russian soil [and not North Korea],
North Korean State Security Department agents shouldn’t even have the authority
to detain people, let alone break people’s legs,” the source added.

A source from a separate worksite in Russia corroborated these
allegations, stating that while North Korean workers sent to Russian
construction sites are permitted relative freedom of movement in order to
complete their tasks, the authorities create an atmosphere of terror by using
extreme punishments, including the breaking of bones, to discourage all escape
attempts. This additional source confirmed that upon their return to North
Korea, transgressors’ families are rounded up with them and sent to political
prison camps.

“Besides escape attempts, there are other infractions that
can earn laborers a return trip to North Korea and a prison term. They can
suffer this fate, for example, if they complain about back pay being withheld.
Individuals who complain about unfair conditions are quietly called in and told
that they will be put on ‘leave.’ In reality, they are repatriated and
imprisoned,” the source explained.  

As one individual affiliated with construction in Ussuriysk
put it, “The Russian government intended to make it extremely difficult for the
North Korean authorities to put handcuffs on their fellow countrymen whilst
inside Russia. However, the North Korean authorities have responded by
resorting to horrifyingly inhumane measures to control their workers.”  


North Korean laborers wait for transport at Vladivostok Airport.

Detention centers have been set up in isolated areas near
worksites to inflict punishment on laborers who express dissent. A
missionary in Russia who has had contact with numerous North Korean laborers
reported that strict surveillance and beatings are used to threaten the
workers, discouraging them from escaping or dissenting, saying, “Those who
dissent are thrown in these detention centers, where they endure particularly
cruel punishment.”        

“The workers who are sent abroad do not even have the slightest
understanding of the concept of human rights. They simply try to live on the
money they are given for their work. They risk their lives and endure
conditions we would consider unfit for animals,” he added.

Sources have also pointed out that life is extremely
grueling even for the laborers who work hard and follow all instructions. In
such extreme work environments, simply caring for one’s own health is a daily
challenge. The high-intensity work environment is fraught with numerous risks
and ever-present dangers. Those who are injured while working are forced to pay
out of pocket for any treatment. The vast majority of the laborers are
therefore unable to receive proper treatment for their injuries.  

In particular, workers who are forced to take time off to
seek treatment must pay a prohibitive fine or have their wages confiscated.
This is in addition to contributing the majority of their monthly earnings to
the Korean Workers’ Party. Those who cannot afford the fine or medical
treatment have no choice but to watch their wounds become infected.

A South Korean business representative in contact with North
Korean laborers in the Vladivostok region spoke of frequent macabre humor among
weary workers, who find solace in the notion that their death results in a
small payout for their families. “They accept that the value of their own life
is less than that $1,000,” he lamented.

He recounted an example from a few years ago, involving a
fatal fall of an overseas worker, in which the enterprise responsible collected
$10 from each of the laborers and amassed a sum of $2,000. In the event of such
tragic accidents, half of the fund is used for the worker’s funeral and the
other half is sent to the family. “Although they collected these funds
from the workers, the manager didn’t contribute a single penny. The manager who
was onsite at the time of the fall was responsible, but he ordered everyone to
claim that he was absent on the day of the accident,” he said.


*This article has been brought to you with support from the Korea Press Foundation.