The families of young farmers recently sent to a forced labor camp for skipping work are complaining, pointing to the relatives of farm officials who also don’t show up for work.
According to a Daily NK source in South Hwanghae province recently, several farmers at a farm in Chaeryong county who failed to show up for work during the busy season were labeled “delinquents” and sent to a county forced labor camp early this month.
The offenders were young farmers who skipped farm work to engage in commerce elsewhere to support their families.
Their families and some other farmers familiar with their situation went to the party cell secretary of their work team and complained about the unfairness.
“We farmed harder for them since they were supporting us,” the families complained. “It’s ridiculous that you punished them—people who were forced to work in labor camps because they were supporting their families by earning money outside—while you do nothing to people from wealthy families who never show up to work.”
The “people from wealthy families who never show up to work” refers to the relatives of farm officials. Such people live in agricultural communities but do relatively comfortable work, such as farm research lab managers or at the farm’s rice mill, while doing no actual farming.
The farmers who complained to the work team’s party cell secretary felt wronged that their relatives were sent to a labor camp for skipping work, while the relatives of even a work team chief never actually worked with a hoe or sickle.
“The children of farm officials mostly leave agricultural communities to study, and even if they join the army, they usually do their military service by ‘parachuting’ into relatively comfortable jobs,” the source said. “So, the farmers who saw their children sent to forced labor camps because they skipped work on the farm were inevitably resentful.”
“Farmers resent the families of officials who avoid work so much that they sarcastically demand to see one who actually works in the fields,” the source said. “Farmers who until now pretended not to see what was going on are now openly complaining, no longer able to tolerate this discriminatory system.”
This discriminatory system is found not only at the farm in question, but is a general phenomenon at all farms, the source said.
“Many farmers feel wronged by the sharp division between those who sweat in the fields and those who occupy good positions and never farm, despite living in the same agricultural community,” the source said. “Farmers say we’re not all the same just because we live in the same agricultural community.”
