It has recently been reported that North Korea’s network of correctional labor camps run by the Ministry of People’s Security (police), also known as re-education camps (kyohwaso), are permitting more family visits for those bearing food provisions.
“Since last year, there has been a food shortage in the correctional labor camps that has only gotten worse. This has prompted labor camp officials to seek out inmates’ families and encourage them to bring food for their loved ones,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on July 16.
A source from Ryanggang Province corroborated this report, saying, “The officer in charge of one prisoner sent to the labor camp due to a drug-related offense visited his family and said, ‘Visits will be allowed every month now, so please come often.’
“The family went the very next day to the camp despite it not being a scheduled visit day and was able to get in after handing over just one packet of cigarettes. It has become much easier than in the past to make these kinds of visits.”
Both sources said that the reason the conditions have become relatively relaxed at the labor camps is due to food shortages and the desire of the labor camp administrators to distance themselves from the responsibility of human rights abuses.
The already insufficient food supply at labor camps has been exacerbated by international sanctions, driving up the number of malnourished prisoners.
The government’s response has been to increase pressure on and threaten correctional labor camp officers with responsibility for the deaths of any inmates related to starvation, thereby causing these officials to turn to detainee’s families as a solution.
The development can be interpreted as an indication that the continuous efforts of the international community to improve the human rights conditions in North Korea are prompting change.
“The correctional camp officers have also been calling local police offices asking them to go and meet with the prisoners families. The police officers will then appeal to the families by saying, ‘Your loved one is suffering from malnutrition and has nothing to eat. If you don’t send any food, they will starve to death. They only have days left. Please visit,’” a separate source in North Hamgyong Province said.
“Even though the prisoner’s families are going through hard times themselves, they do whatever they can to try and help. Families most commonly send food items like a taffy-like block made by mixing soybean powder, granulated sugar, and soybean oil.”
*Translated by Brian Boyle
