The Czech Republic’s ‘Peculiar Institution’

“If someone calls it slavery …, I’m not the person responsible for that.”

The IHT looks at the conditions in which North Korean women labor in the Czech Republic.  Some will  say  — and I will agree —  that the women certainly look better fed and clothed than their counterparts at home.  One could say the same for workers at Kaesong, to  a lesser extent,  who probably also eat better than their peers.  Like those meeting the classical definition of “slave,” it turns out that those at Kaesong are paid mainly in food; in both places, the regime appears to  confiscate most of what they earn.  

There is one significant difference:  unlike the workers at Kaesong or remote  Siberian logging camps, those sent to the Czech Republic really do see something of the outside world.  Like most questions about the  use (or exploitation) of  North Korean labor, there are  arguments in both directions.  But in the end, the arguments in support of Kaesong and other such projects have too familiar a ring to them.  If our all of our  conventions against the trafficking of persons mean anything, then we shouldn’t permit this.  Arrangements like these may distribute modest benefits to a privileged few, but do so  at the cost of helping this regime deny the basic needs of life to millions.