North Korea has enslaved political prisoners, including children, in coal production to help boost exports and earn foreign currency as part of a system directly linked to its nuclear and missile programs, a Korean human rights group said. South.
The North Korean Citizens’ Alliance for Human Rights (NKHR), based in Seoul, has launched a study examining a complicated link between the exploitation of North Korean citizens, the production of goods for export, and its weapons programs.
The report, entitled Exporting Coal from Blood to North Korea, says Pyongyang has operated a “pyramid fraud” system to force detainees in prison camps to produce quotas of coal and other goods for export.
His findings provide a deeper insight into how the camps contribute to North Korea’s shady coal trading network after the United Nations banned its exports of goods to stifle funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. and after human rights agencies reported serious rights violations in the camps.
There was no immediate reaction from the North Korean diplomatic mission in Geneva to a request for comment.
North Korea has violated UN sanctions to earn nearly $ 200 million in 2017 from banned merchandise exports, according to a confidential report by independent UN monitors released in early 2018.
The NKHR report cites interviews with former prisoners who escaped to the south and other deserters with knowledge of the transactions, along with other sources, such as satellite images and data from South Korean and US governments.
The UN estimates that up to 200,000 people are being held in a vast network of secret police-led gulags, many of which are located near mining sites. A 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report said prisoners faced torture, rape, forced labor, starvation and other inhuman treatment.
In December, the United States imposed new sanctions, blacklisting six companies, several of which were based in China, and four ships accused of illicit exports of North Korean coal.
The NKHR report states: “Quotas for export are met by the enslaved work of men, women and children in detention camps held and operated by the secret police.”
An example is Camp 18, in the central mining county of Bukchang. Former prisoners interviewed by NKHR reported that at least 8 million tons of coal were produced there in 2016.
The secret police, officially known as the Ministry of State Security, manage the transport of goods exported by Bureau 39, a hidden secret fund for the family of leader Kim Jong-un, with links to the production of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the report adds. .
Joanna Hosaniak, NKHR’s deputy director general, said the investigation was designed to highlight the key role of the “state-sponsored slavery system” in strengthening Kim’s political and financial power and nuclear programs, as Joe Biden analyzes. US policy of North Korea.