Evaluation of human rights organization: North Korea uses prisoners of war as work slaves

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North Korean uranium mine (archive image)

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According to a human rights organization, North Korea has for decades forced thousands of former prisoners of war from South Korea and their descendants to work in coal mines and other mines, in addition to prisoners.

The Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul released a report on Thursday.

Among other things, the group had collected the testimony of former political prisoners and prisoners of war who had managed to escape to South Korea.

The investigation will now describe the system of how North Korea's leadership extracts and exports coal and other mineral resources through the use of work slaves.

In this way, the isolated country procures the necessary foreign currency, for example for its own nuclear weapons program.

Forced labor should be an important economic factor

According to the BBC, the authors of the report rely on accounts from 15 people who are said to have witnessed the conditions in the mines.

The station also spoke to other people who stated that they worked in the mines and successfully fled.

According to the BBC, prisoners in the camps were said to have barely been given food, but were encouraged to marry and have children.

The children are said to have been forced to work in the mines - some were reportedly only seven years old.

"The entire mineral raw material industry in North Korean mines within an extensive network of prisons and political prison camps as well as in mines outside the prison system is characterized by forced labor and mass abuse," said the head of the organization in Seoul, Kim Young Ja.

According to the group, there are also so-called "social mines" outside the camp system with its mines, in which the prisoners are forced to work.

In terms of working conditions, however, there are basically no differences.

Thousands of South Korean prisoners of war were one of the largest groups among the people who were sent to the "social mines".

After the Korean War (1950-53) they should have worked in the coal, magnesite, zinc and lead mines in the provinces of North and South Hamgyung.

"You were never allowed to return to South Korea."

The leadership in Pyongyang is repeatedly accused of serious human rights violations.

They are contested by North Korea.

A few years ago the UN Security Council set up a commission to investigate the allegations.

Its February 2014 report stated that in North Korea people classified as politically unreliable were systematically murdered or abused as work slaves.

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fek / dpa