The Central Committee’s Discipline Inspection Department launched an internal inspection of Unpa Mine in South Pyongan province after female laborers at the mine complained of continued discrimination and unfair treatment.
A Daily NK source in South Pyongan province said recently that female laborers in their 20s at Unpa Mine filed a complaint as their long-suppressed rage boiled over with the recent death of a female worker, and the Discipline Inspection Department began a probe into the mine after the complaint reached the Central Committee.
According to the source, two female laborers in their early 20s living in the mine’s dormitory filed the complaint.
They had previously tried to file several complaints with the mine’s party committee over unfair orders from mine officials and repeated violent and discriminatory treatment. The committee, however, refused the petitions, and their superiors pressured them to quit filing complaints.
When one of their female colleagues ultimately died in an accident after being forced to overwork, the two women took the opportunity to file a complaint to higher authorities. The complaint reached the Central Committee, which launched an internal inspection of the mine.
‘Rats in a trap’
Most of the female laborers at Unpa Mine are unmarried women in their 20s who were collectively deployed after graduating high school, and mine officials and male laborers call them “rats in a trap,” frequently managing them cruelly and abusing them at will as they are cut off from the outside world, the source said. The Discipline Inspection Department got directly involved after a complaint to that effect ultimately reached the Central Committee.
In fact, the Discipline Inspection Department sent officials to Unpa Mine last month, where they began investigating how its female laborers are treated. The inspection team found that female laborers live in horrible conditions and receive worse treatment than their male colleagues, despite working in the same tunnels. The mine even failed to ensure their rest time.
The inspectors received testimony that some female workers were forced to work despite being sick, without receiving proper treatment, and that some even attempted suicide due to psychological distress after repeatedly being subjected to this treatment.
The Discipline Inspection Department sent additional personnel to the mine after inspectors determined that some Unpa Mine officials who were under investigation had doctored or destroyed internal records and other documents before the probe to protect themselves and their positions.
Mixed reactions
The mine’s female workers are responding to the probe with a mix of hope and fear — they look forward to positive change as a result of the investigation, but they also worry that it will come to nothing.
They complain that they shouldn’t have to take this treatment and that they are simply told to obey because they are women. But they are also determined to resist, saying they should come together and record what they have to say.
The party’s Discipline Inspection Department won’t stop at Unpa Mine — it will expand its investigation into the treatment of female workers at nearby mines and factory districts, the source said. The Central Committee has ordered authorities to expose all incidents that were covered up during the Eighth Party Congress and simultaneously draw up plans to improve the treatment of female workers before the Ninth Party Congress.
