These men are some of the very few North Koreans ever allowed to leave the
country. They're part of a global workforce exploited by their own country
to make money for the regime. They work in appalling conditions and after Kim
Jong Un takes his cut, they're left with little money to show for their hard
labor. Solid numbers are hard to come by when dealing with the secretive Kim
regime, but according to the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, there
are at least 60,000 workers in 20 countries around the world. There are
approximately 29,000 in Russia and 19,000 in China. The rest are in other
parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. "The difference between the
exploitation of workers by criminal organizations and the Kim regime in
North Korea, is that the Kim regime is a criminal organization masquerading as a
nation-state." Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of the Committee for
Human Rights in North Korea has testified in front of Congress about
this issue. "The regime selects male candidates of good 'songbun,' North
Korea's loyalty based social discrimination system, married with at
least one child. They are on the fringes of the so-called core class, loyal but
poor." "Of course the families are kept at home as hostages as insurance to make
sure that these workers do not defect." This undercover footage, taken in Russia
in 2015 and in Mongolia in 2017, gives us a rare glimpse and how these workers
live. North Korea Reform Radio, an activist organization that broadcasts
from Seoul into the North, shared the footage from Russia with The Washington Post.
and South Korean media outlets. The footage from Mongolia has never been seen before now.
For the safety of the people in the video, the Post has decided to disguise voices faces and uniforms and not release the exact location of the work site.
Kim Seung-chul is the founder of North Korea Reform Radio. Born in the city of Hamhung,
along North Korea's east coast, he escaped from a work site in Russia
and defected to South Korea in the early 90s.
In the 60s, North Korea sent loggin crews to Russia in exchange for military know-how and technology.
Under the country's current leader, Kim Jong Un, the program has grown significantly. Conservative estimates put
the yearly take at 200 million dollars. Other estimates put the number much
higher soaring into the billions. Jae Ku is the director of the U.S.-Korea
Institute at Johns Hopkins University. "Whether they are in the restaurant
business or construction business, a large portion, somewhere between 70 to 90
percent of their monthly salary will go to their managers which will then go
directly to the state coffers. They're not allowed to go travel outside of
their dormitory complexes, but I think that's case-by-case because I've also
heard defector stories that they are allowed to go out to you know limited
Many workers sign up to go overseas offering insight into what North Koreans face
inside the totalitarian state.
This ledger book from the work site in Russia shows how the on-site managers kept track of
earnings, and even how they kept order.
In July, Kim took this footage in Mongolia.
And this was before the U.N. passed tough
new sanctions that took aim directly at the overseas workforce.
As Kim Jong Un continues with nuclear and ballistic missile tests
North Korea's few remaining allies, especially China, are losing patience.
Some countries like Poland, a member of the European Union, say they will no
longer issue work visas to North Koreans.
But there's no guarantee that the new sanctions will put an end to the overseas worker program.
"It's like the whack-a-mole game. As we whack them once, they will just dig another opportunity
somewhere and emerge."
Although unprecedented, the new sanctions do not completely ban the program. Both Russia and China have condemned Kim's
nuclear ambitions, but neither country wants a total collapse of the North
Korean economy. "They have their own independent interest which is to
maintain good relations with North Korea in which they've had historically long
relationship." The compromise they reached with the
U.S. allows some instances in which North Koreans are allowed to work
overseas, including for humanitarian purposes. "Now of course the potential for
loopholes is still there. Humanitarian goals is a
fairly loose term, I guess, and basically making that determination could be a
highly discretionary act."
The U.N. and U.S. have addressed North Korean human rights abuses in the past, but Scarlatoiu says that the sanctions targeting the
workforce are strictly aimed at curbing the regime's advancement of its nuclear
program. "There is no human rights rationale included in these U.N. Security
Council resolutions." "Given what we know about North Korean culture — political culture —
and their fear of outside information, my fear is that once these
people return, what kind of monitoring surveillance would they go under they
have certainly sensed freedom, seen things that they probably did not see in
their country. If that becomes an issue what would the regime decide to do with
these tens of thousands of workers who came back?"