Hyesan authorities are increasingly cracking down against pull-cart delivery people, with some of them even being dragged off to labor camps, Daily NK has learned.
“Police in Hyesan have been ramping up their crackdowns against cart-pullers since late May,” a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on June 13. “There’s been a steady stream of incidents where cart-pullers delivering goods have suddenly been seized and sent off to labor camps as punishment.”
After the Eighth Party Congress in 2021, the North Korean government further increased efforts to eliminate street vendors under the pretext of clamping down on anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior. As a result, cart-pullers, who often deliver goods for street vendors, have been targeted by crackdowns.
Since cart-pullers make their money off of fees for the goods they transport, their livelihoods took a serious hit when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the North Korea-China border and ended smuggling. For many, the added challenges posed by crackdowns have been devastating to their livelihoods.
Daily NK’s source said that with the exception of a handful of cart-pullers who pay off the authorities or otherwise operate under police protection, most cart-pullers are leading poverty-stricken lives.
“Over just two days at the end of May, around ten cart-pullers in the Hyehung and Hyejang neighborhoods – all of whom were leading very difficult lives – were dragged away. Ultimately, cart-pullers with no money or power and who are just trying their best to survive are being dragged away to labor camps.”
In fact, cart-pullers are risking labor camps to pull in meager amounts of money: the average cart-puller makes about KPW 2,000 – 3,000 per day. Even as arrests continue to pose a serious threat, many cart-pullers lack any other way to make money and have no choice but to continue their work, the source said.
“Life for those at the bottom of society, like the cart-pullers, is only getting more difficult. Yet, all the government does is strengthen crackdowns so much that these people can’t even make a living, which has led to discontent.”
Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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