A female worker at the Chollima Steel Complex in Nampo recently committed suicide after years of sexual abuse at the hands of her boss, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Monday that the woman – a statistician in her 20s – died by suicide “after years of sexual assault and threats by the 50-something manager of her workplace.”
According to the source, the woman was assigned to the Chollima Steel Complex after graduating from high school. The manager initially approached her because of her family situation and offered to help her as she was caring for her widowed mother.
The manager supported her in several ways, enrolling her in a vocational school and recommending her as a statistician upon her graduation, an extraordinary move given the male dominance of that position at the plant.
After she became a statistician, however, the manager forced her to work next to him and constantly demanded sex. When she refused, he made threatening remarks, saying he would fire her for workplace mistakes or spread rumors to make her unmarriageable.
“The woman who suffered at the hands of the manager after becoming a statistician died [by her own hand] last month, leaving a suicide note describing what had happened to her,” the source said.
When she learned what had happened to her daughter, the distraught mother went to the Chollima Steel Complex, stood at the front gate, and shouted to workers arriving for work, “My daughter died because the manager sexually assaulted her!” and “The manager is a murderer!”
“The woman’s mother said she would report the incident to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and asked her daughter’s former co-workers to write down testimony that her daughter was hurt and stressed by the stares of workers who suspected her of having an affair with the manager,” the source said. “However, no one came forward willingly because the manager’s relatives are all cadres and they were afraid of what would happen to them if they crossed him.”
He added: “The manager has no supervisor who will take him to task, and he claimed his only crime was helping the woman.”
The source further reported that the workers closest to the deceased were informed of their transfer to the most difficult work group in the complex, perhaps because they knew what had really transpired.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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