North Korea Makes Billions Sending Slave Labor Abroad, United Nations Says

North Korea has a new business model that is beating U.N. sanctions — selling forced labor abroad. For a fee to the North Korean government, companies have been able to buy workers without any concern for safety, work hours, or compensation. The practice has reportedly made Kim Jong-un billions.

CNN talked to an escaped forced laborer in May, who was sent to Kuwait. He worked on a construction site for five months without receiving any money, before finally escaping to a South Korean embassy.

His story was not alone. Many others escaped their harsh treatments and told similar tales of exploitation and abuse.

According to the Guardian, Marzuki Darusman, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, has released a report detailing the full extent of the problem.

Kim Jong-un’s regime is making anywhere between $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion a year. The workers are mostly sent to sites in Russia or China, both allies of North Korea, but there have been reported incidents in Algeria, Angola, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Oman, Poland, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Darusman explained that host governments appeared to be ignoring the abuse to the North Koreans, and companies hiring these workers “become complicit in an unacceptable system of forced labor.”

He explained in his report that “they should report any abuses to the local authorities, which have the obligation to investigate thoroughly, and end such partnership.”

A construction company in Qatar was commended in the rapporteur’s report for dismissing 90 North Korean workers. The unnamed firm said that their supervisors were forcing them to work 12 hours a day.

Darusman said that there are roughly 50,000 forced laborers abroad, although South Korea reports the number is closer to 100,000. Those that do receive some compensation reportedly earn about $120 to $150 a month — the fees to North Korea are unknown but supposedly “quite a bit more.”

Abroad jobs are assigned based on the government-mandated social class. The lowest class is known as “songbun” in Korean, and its members receive the most dangerous or tedious assignments.

The money is then diverted into the country’s military budget, nuclear program, or Kim Jong-un’s inner circle.

Darusman accused the program of violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and believes the case should be brought before the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by the U.N. security council — a move that would likely be vetoed by China and Russia.

North Korea is also well-known for its domestic human rights abuses, including torture, summary executions, abuses in prison camps, arbitrary detention, and class-based discrimination.

Still, Kim Jong-un, the hereditary leader of North Korea, may be exceptional in one way according to the Guardian; he’s the only member of his dynasty to quietly encourage the private sector.

His most successful reform thus far has been in agriculture. Though plots are still owned by the state, they are now given to individual farming families, which then work for a 30 to 70 percent share of the harvest. Partially as a result, the country celebrated record harvests in 2014.

Likewise, analysts believe the country’s GDP is growing by anywhere between 1.5 to 4 percent.

The U.N. special rapporteur also mentions the changes in his report.

“We are hearing credible reports about small businesses being established, small plots, gardening and farming activities, the beginnings of a property market, the widespread use of mobile phones, the illegal imports of South Korean pop music and videos and a host of other issues that gives an image that incremental changes are taking place in the North.”

North Korea’s forced labor program abroad is still another black eye on the reputation of a regime despised by many.

[Image Credit: Xiaolu Chu/Getty Images]