Mick Hartley

The issue of North Korean workers abroad – slave labour, in effect, earning currency for the regime back home – has been highlighted here often enough. According to this latest BBC report there've actually been riots in China as wages go unpaid:

The riots broke out across several North Korean-run clothing factories in north-east China on 11 January, according to a former North Korean diplomat with sources in the region, who broke the news to media last month.

Ko Young Hwan, who defected to South Korea in the 1990s, told the BBC he heard the workers exploded when they learnt that years' worth of unpaid wages had been transferred to a war preparation fund in Pyongyang.

"They got violent, and started breaking sewing machines and kitchen utensils," Mr Ko said. "Some even locked the North Korean officials in a room and assaulted them."

The BBC cannot verify Mr Ko's account of these protests, as no independently verifiable information is available. Not only is North Korea highly secretive, but its factories in China are closely guarded.

An estimated 100,000 North Koreans are posted abroad, mostly in factories and construction sites in north-east China, operated by the North Korean government, where they earn valuable foreign currency for the sanctions-hit regime. It is estimated they earned Pyongyang $740m (£586m) between 2017 and 2023.

Most of their earnings are transferred directly to the state. But Mr Ko understands that during the pandemic the textile workers at the striking factories had their wages withheld altogether and were told they would be paid upon their return to North Korea….

The BBC has been shown an email from someone claiming to be a North Korean currently working in China, which suggests the level of control exerted on workers has increased over the past four years.

The man, who says he is an IT worker in north-eastern China, had been emailing Mr Ko for more than a year, and contacted him again last week after hearing about the protests, Mr Ko said.

Mr Ko told us he had confirmed the man's identity, though the BBC cannot independently verify who he is, or his account, because of the level of anonymity required to protect him.

"The North Korean state exploits IT workers like slaves, making us work six days a week, 12-14 hours a day," the computer programmer wrote. The staff work through the night for clients based in the US and Europe, he said, which is causing chronic sleep deprivation and many illnesses.

When he first arrived, he was paid between 15-20% of his earnings monthly, but in 2020 he claimed his payments stopped. An order then came down from the authorities in Pyongyang, he alleged, ordering officials to padlock the workers into their camp at night to stop them escaping.

The man detailed in his email how managers are pressured to publicly shame underperforming staff, by slapping them in front of everyone, and later beating them until they bled.

In contrast, he said the high achievers are rewarded with a trip to a North Korean restaurant, where they can pick one of the waitresses to spend the evening with. The top employee of the month gets to choose first. He likened it to a hostess bar – and accused managers of "preying on young men's sexual urges, to get them to compete and bring in more money"….