N. Korean workers prepare seafood going to U.S. stores
HUNCHUN, China — Americans buying seafood may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean nuclear weapons program, an Associated Press investigation has found. They may also have supported forced labor.
Since N. Korea is banned from selling almost anything, the country sends tens of thousands of workers worldwide to bring in an estimated $200 million to $500 million a year. That could account for a sizable portion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which South Korea says have cost more than $1 billion.
While N. Korean workers have been documented overseas, the AP investigation reveals that some products they make go to the United States. The AP also tracked products made by N. Korean workers to Canada, Germany and elsewhere in the European Union.
At Chinese factories, N. Korean workers cannot leave their compounds without permission, and must step from housing to factories in pairs or groups, with N. Korean minders. They receive a fraction of their salaries; as much as 70 percent is taken by the N. Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government.
John Connelly, president of the National Fisheries Institute, urged its 300 members, including the largest seafood importers in the U.S., to “ensure that wages go to the workers and are not siphoned off to support a dangerous dictator.”
Besides seafood, the AP found N. Korean laborers making wood flooring and sewing garments in Chinese factories. Those industries also export to the U.S., but the AP tracked only seafood shipments.
American companies aren’t allowed to import products made by N. Korean workers anywhere in the world and companies doing business with them could face criminal charges for using N. Korean workers or materially benefiting from their work.
Western companies involved that responded to the AP said forced labor and potential support for N. Korea was unacceptable in their supply chains. They said they’d investigate and some said they’d already cut ties with suppliers.
Roughly 3,000 N. Koreans are believed to work in Hunchun, a Chinese industrial hub near the N. Korean and Russian borders.
Shipping records show more than 100 cargo containers of seafood were sent to the U.S. and Canada this year from factories where N. Koreans were working in China.
Often, the fish arrives in generic packaging. But some were branded in China with familiar names like Walmart or Sea Queen, which is sold exclusively at ALDI supermarkets. There’s no way to say where a particular package ends up, nor what percentage of a factory’s products wind up in the U.S.
Walmart spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said company officials banned suppliers from getting seafood processed at a Hunchun plant a year ago after an audit revealed potential issues with migrant workers.