North Korea exporting workers into lives of slavery

LA Times via Seattle Times ^ | December 28, 2005 | Barbara Demick

[neverdem]

ZELEZNA, Czech Republic — The old schoolhouse stands alone at the end of a quiet country road flanked by snow-flecked wheat fields. From behind the locked door, opaque with smoked glass, come the clatter of sewing machines and, improbably, the babble of young female voices speaking Korean.

The schoolhouse, which closed long ago for lack of students in this village of 200, is now a factory producing uniforms. Almost all the workers are North Korean, and the women initially looked delighted to see visitors. It gets lonely working out here, thousands of miles from home. They crowded around to chat.

"I'm not so happy here. There is nobody who speaks my language. I'm so far from home," volunteered a tentative young woman in a T-shirt and sweatpants who said she was from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

But as she spoke, an older woman with stern posture and an expressionless face — a North Korean security official — passed by in the corridor. The young women scattered wordlessly and disappeared into another room, closing and bolting the door behind them.

Hundreds of young North Korean women are working in garment and leather factories like this one, easing a labor shortage in small Czech towns. Their presence in this new member of the European Union is an echo of North Korea's former alliance with other Communist countries.

The North Korean government keeps most of the earnings, apparently one of the few legal sources of hard currency for an isolated and impoverished regime living off counterfeiting, drug trading and weapons sales.

Experts estimate 10,000 to 15,000 North Koreans are working abroad on behalf of their government in jobs ranging from nursing to construction work. North Korea has sent workers to Russia, Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Angola, in addition to the Czech...

[neverdem]

North Koreans Attend Ideology 101

[proudofthesouth]

They're just copying what Mao did.

[denydenydeny]

You can't fool me, slavery only took place in the American South. /sarcasm

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I'm disappointed in the Czechs. They should recognize a state jackboot when they see one.

[bukkdems]

The North Korean government keeps most of the earnings, apparently one of the few legal sources of hard currency for an isolated and impoverished regime living off counterfeiting, drug trading and weapons sales

Obviously, all the other enterprises earn hard currency as well. A decent CEO could turn this place into paradise.

[elmer fudd]

Sadly, it's probably a lot better than life in North Korea.

[heartwood]

Hey, let's re-vitalize the American textile and clothing industry. The Zimbabwe-America Mutual Benefit Corporation - we'll get Mugabe to send us some young women, set them up in similar conditions in Alabama, pay them 10 cents an hour - it's perfectly acceptable to the internation community, isn't it?

[dr_who_2]

That's news. It used to be that they were (forceably) importing workers into lives of slavery.

[Vigilanteman]

Yep. 'fraid so:

Kim says Czechs often mistook the North Korean women for convict laborers because of the harsh conditions. "They would ask the girls, 'What terrible thing did you do to be sent here to work like this?' "

In fact, the women usually come from families deemed sufficiently loyal to the regime that their daughters will not defect. With salaries at state-owned companies in North Korea as low as $1 per month, the chance to work abroad for a three-year stint is considered a privilege.

[Defendingliberty]

"Sadly, it's probably a lot better than life in North Korea."

That's what I thought.