One in 10 North Koreans ‘forced into slavery’

ONE in every ten North Korean citizens are forced into slavery at some point in their lives, a report found yesterday.

The shocking human rights abuses affect 2.6million people in the country.

Child labour is an integral part of North Korean society, with primary school pupils sent on two-month stints to plant crops and pick fruit, or collect coal by railway tracks, an investigation by the Global Slavery Index (GSI) found.

Any money for the work goes to their school and refusal to participate can lead to punishment or expulsion.

The GSI interviewed 50 defectors from the regime and all but one described servitude either as children or adults, or both.

One defector described how, as a teenager, she was ordered to help build a road in Pyongyang for six months.

Adults are threatened with detention in labour camps if they refuse such work – for which they are told to bring their own tools or use their hands. Some even pay for a job to avoid detention.

Dr Jang Jin-sung, who defected in 2004 and is now a GSI panellist, said citizens do not realise they are slaves because they have been indoctrinated.

‘As a child I had to do farm work in the summer,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think of it as forced labour but as a righteous duty to the state.’