Radio Free Asia launches investigation of N. Korean forced labor

Radio Free Asia has launched an investigative reporting project into the use of North Korean labor on three continents, and the dangers those joint ventures pose not only to the North Korean workers, but to their customers abroad. RFA also published this infographic about where the North Korean workers are, doing everything from logging and construction to staffing medical clinics. No doubt, the conditions in which the North Korean workers labor also vary, which causes some to criticize the description of these workers as “slave” or “forced” laborers. But just try to rationalize this:

Desperate for hard currency, North Korea has been sending tens of thousands of its people abroad to earn cash for the state, dispatching lumberjacks to Russia, construction workers to the Middle East and medics to countries in Africa. Tanzania hosts as many as 12 medical clinics, including four in the capital Dar es-Salaam, that remit about $1 million a year to Pyongyang. The clinics, however, face growing criticism among Tanzanians for doctors who are unqualified and can’t communicate with patients, misdiagnosis of illnesses, unsanitary conditions and poorly labeled medicines that contain toxic metals. [Radio Free Asia]

Throughout history – including in the American South – slaves have always experienced variable degrees of brutality. Nat Turner and Sally Hemmings lived in different circumstances, but the forced servitude of both was disgraceful. The fact that the conditions of servitude for some North Koreans are relatively benign when compared to the conditions experienced by others (at home, or in Siberia) in no way excuses the evil of imposing the terms or conditions of labor on another person, regardless of her will.

The use of North Koreans as doctors and nurses in Africa is an aspect of the story I did not know much about. Given the deplorable state of North Korea’s own health care system, it seems criminal of Pyongyang to send its doctors and nurses abroad to earn cash, until you read the reports of the quack cures the North Koreans are foisting on their African patients. Viewed in that light, the quality of the services North Koreans are denied seems dubious. The crime is shifted to a different class of victims instead.

Legally, each of these reports is pregnant with legal significance. Any of these reports would be “credible information” that would trigger a mandatory investigation under section 102(a) of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act. Under section 104(a)(5), persons who knowingly engage in, are responsible for, or facilitate “serious human rights abuses by the Government of North Korea” are subject to mandatory sanctions, including the blocking of their assets and the denial of visas to enter the United States. Executive Order 13722, which implements the new law, blocks the dollars of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury to have “engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for the exportation of workers from North Korea, including exportation to generate revenue for the Government of North Korea or the Workers’ Party of Korea.” Note that the executive order does not specify “forced” or “slave” labor.

This means that any of these enterprises that run transactions through the dollar system are subject to severe sanctions.