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Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

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Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#151

Post by lock-the-spock »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #137

> Since then, North Koreans have been sent to Russia, Poland, Qatar, Uruguay, and Mali. Poland? Poland is a EU member country, is it legal to employ North Korean slaves in the EU? Update: Found the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-00624... Some Christel Schaldemose was asking the European Parliament the same question back in 2017, but I didn't see an answer.

It's a member of the European parliament asking a question to the European Commission (the EU executive). The reply is linked at the top of the page, but note that both question and answer are by now quite dated.

> Overall, at the end of 2016, 630 North-Korean citizens were holding a valid residence permit in the EU for work purposes, predominantly in Poland (534).[1]

> When processing the applications for residence permits for work purposes, it is the responsibility of the national authorities to check that the conditions are fulfilled, in line with the EU acquis on legal migration, working conditions and on health and safety at work.

> The EU acquis on legal migration ensures that third-country nationals working in the EU benefit from equal treatment with nationals in terms of remuneration, access to social security systems and other conditions of employment. It is the responsibility of the national authorities, including the labour inspectorates, police and judicial authorities to ensure that the prohibition of forced labour is enforced.

> The Commission will keep monitoring the transposition and application of the different instruments by Poland.

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#152

Post by gambiting »

Throw494955 wrote: post #145
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #137

> Since then, North Koreans have been sent to Russia, Poland, Qatar, Uruguay, and Mali. Poland? Poland is a EU member country, is it legal to employ North Korean slaves in the EU? Update: Found the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-00624... Some Christel Schaldemose was asking the European Parliament the same question back in 2017, but I didn't see an answer.

People send to EU are not some slaves, but highly loyal party members.

Highly loyal party members are being "sent" for work in Poland?

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#153

Post by lock-the-spock »

Throw494955 wrote: post #145
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #137

> Since then, North Koreans have been sent to Russia, Poland, Qatar, Uruguay, and Mali. Poland? Poland is a EU member country, is it legal to employ North Korean slaves in the EU? Update: Found the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-00624... Some Christel Schaldemose was asking the European Parliament the same question back in 2017, but I didn't see an answer.

People send to EU are not some slaves, but highly loyal party members.

I guess it's more that it is difficult to ensure freedoms when people stay 'voluntarily' and don't speak out. There are similar stories about Chinese clothing factories based in Italy (thus: close to Chinese prices but "Made in Italy" labels). Workers without any locally relevant language skills are brought there, housed in Company housing, eat from canteen/company shops with produce they know, etc. Hard to fight if all the formalities of labour law are respected and the employees do not speak out against abuse/actual reality of implementation. Very similar to how U.S. companies, in particular the slaughterhouses are known to work, with often irregular migrants employed for their wonderful exploitation potential. You won't speak out if you think you'll be deported and can't suppor your starving family back home... And of course even much worse is known from the seafood sector, where notably Chinese vessels essentially enslave south east asian workers - where are you going to go when locked on a tiny boat...?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-wo...

https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/made-in-italy-by-chinese-...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/the-crimes-beh...

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#154

Post by gambiting »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #151
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #137

> Since then, North Koreans have been sent to Russia, Poland, Qatar, Uruguay, and Mali. Poland? Poland is a EU member country, is it legal to employ North Korean slaves in the EU? Update: Found the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-00624... Some Christel Schaldemose was asking the European Parliament the same question back in 2017, but I didn't see an answer.

It's a member of the European parliament asking a question to the European Commission (the EU executive). The reply is linked at the top of the page, but note that both question and answer are by now quite dated. > Overall, at the end of 2016, 630 North-Korean citizens were holding a valid residence permit in the EU for work purposes, predominantly in Poland (534).[1] > When processing the applications for residence…

Remember that Poland has been caught red handed recently handing out schoengen visas(to the tune of 200k visas issues without proper checks) for cash, so I'd expect the enforcement of law around this to be very lax.

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#155

Post by gambiting »

throwaway290 wrote: post #90
hx8 wrote: post #41

> To trace the importation of seafood from factories that appear to be using North Korean labor, my team reviewed trade data, shipping contracts, and the codes that are stamped on seafood packages to monitor food safety. We found that, since 2017, ten of these plants have together shipped more than a hundred and twenty thousand tons of seafood to more than seventy American importers, which supplied grocery stores inc…

> How can something like this be allowed into The United States. Are trade sanctions actually bureaucratic yellow tape to get around with middleman shell companies? Not just US. Did you know that as soon as Russian sanctions began with the latest war escalation, German exports of chips and machinery to Kyrgyzstan rose 900%? (I'd be the first to say this sounds like a conspiracy but by now even Reuters reported on it)

Polish imports of wood from Kazakhstan have gone up 50x since the introduction of sanctions on Russia - even though Kazakhstan has close to zero forests and its domestic production of wood has always been very very very low - but suddenly they produce so much wood it almost exactly matches what used to be imported from Russia before. And everyone knows this is a rouse and this is really Russian wood imported into Kazakhstan first, but regulators are either unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#156

Post by gambiting »

Loughla wrote: post #72

Real question; is there any kind of revolutionary force inside NK? It seems like there should be, but we never hear about it. Anybody know?

It seems like there used to be at least a network of missionaries and covert organisations focused on helping North Koreans escape, but since covid hit it has all but disappeared - NK really went hard on survailence, absolute zero tolerance on dissident(even less than before) and equally China(common path for refugees before) stepped up their own surveilance game and nearly always succeeds at catching anyone attempting to cross through their country.

Some interesting details here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlX7tl1QvJs

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#157

Post by gambiting »

overstay8930 wrote: post #95
Loughla wrote: post #72

Real question; is there any kind of revolutionary force inside NK? It seems like there should be, but we never hear about it. Anybody know?

Ask anyone who lived in Eastern Europe pre-Glasnost what happened to people that wanted change

Sure, but (at least in Poland) there always were hidden organisations for people who disagreed with the government. Maybe not straight up militia, but there was an element outside of the government view and control.

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#158

Post by [deleted] »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #132
boomboomsubban wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is "South Korea no longer rules them an enemy" disagreeing? Surely that's a sign of them getting along.

From the Wikipedia article, this is how: During his election campaign in 2021, Yoon Suk Yeol said that he would ask that the United States to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea if there is a threat from North Korea.[162] U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Japan and Korea Mark Lambert rejected Yoon's call, saying said the proposal was against U.S. policy.[163] In November 2022, a US-South Korea…

[deleted]

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#159

Post by buran77 »

konstmonst wrote: post #102
dimitri_deploys wrote: post #4

Absolutely incredible reporting. The risks taken by the sources both at the factories and within North Korea defy comprehension for anybody lucky enough not to fear that speaking out will endanger their family.

I disagree, removing sanctions will make them stronger when the conflict comes. Also as I see it, all nations don't care much about people's suffering in some other country, they care most about their inner affairs, which is understandable geopolitically. Most of the people also don't care or else they would vote with their money. Are north koreans worth nuclear escalation - I don't think so.

> all nations don't care much about people's suffering in some other country

> Most of the people also don't care

I think it may be quite the opposite, albeit usually not genuine "caring", rather just "focusing". Whether nations want to redirect people's attention away from problems at home, or people want/let their attention redirected, they'll focus more on the crap happening in another country. An enemy or an issue are always created somewhere far away, something as contrasting as possible with the apparent situation at home.

Take the example of prisons and prison labor in the US. People know millions are imprisoned at home, many forced to work, with inhumane conditions. But that's a bitter taste when they know it's at home, that it's a democratic country, that this could be changed but isn't. So it's made better by looking at how much worse it could be.

It's an easy mental and moral release and people need one especially when there's a discrepancy between the image they have of their country and the reality. The bigger the discrepancy, the easier and more attractive it is to look at the speck/plank in someone else's eye.

This happens everywhere in the world because it's human nature: it's where people's desire to comfort their conscience and leaders' desire to manipulate that intersect.

Re: Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program

#160

Post by prmoustache »

xwolfi wrote: post #110
kurthr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but to be fair... you can't call it socialism. NK has been a dictatorship for literally generations. Even SK has only been democratic for a relatively short time. Just because they put democratic or socialist or even communist in their name doesn't make them so.

But have we seen that many people calling themselves socialists not ending up with the same problem ? Socialism doesnt work because it doesnt consider greed as a positive force. Starting from there, every sign of greed is suppressed until remains only an oppressive bureaucracy in charge of hammering any sign of attempt of maybe earning something. Socialism is not evil, it's even benevolent: but it's flawed because it…

Socialism / communism is nice in theory but not applicable country wide.

I would argue that it could be applicable in a voluntary mode in more smaller states (city sized) where people not agreeing would have the freedom to leave.

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