Forced labour makes N Korea slavery capital of the world

NORTH KOREA has the largest number of slaves in the world, with just over one in 10 of the population – some 2.6million people – subjected to forced labour.

The shocking abuse, which includes young children being coerced into exhausting manual work, was outlined yesterday by the 2018 Global Slavery Index, the largest survey in the world of human slavery and forced marriage.

Based on 71,000 individual interviews in 48 countries, the report by the Walk Free Foundation – a human rights group campaigning to end slavery – concludes that an estimated 40.3million men, women and children worldwide are being forced to work against their will.

About 2.6million of them toil unseen behind the closed borders of the repressive and secretive regime in North Korea. Such is the extent of their mistreatment that the foundation dedicated a spin-off report specifically to shine a spotlight on their plight.

Of 50 defectors interviewed over the course of a year, all but one described servitude either as children or adults, or in some cases both. Their accounts dated from 2011-2016, in a timely reminder of the grim reality of North Korean life, despite leader Kim Jongun’s recent charm offensive.

Child labour, through communal activities called “mobilisations”, is an integral part of North Korean society.

Pupils, even of primary school age, are required to strive for up to two months at a time in back-breaking farm work or manual labour, such as collecting discarded coal beside rail tracks.

Their schools, and not the children, receive payment for the work and any students refusing to participate risk punishment or even expulsion.