According to the Daily NK:
The U.S. Department of State released its 10th “Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP)” yesterday, once again classifying North Korea as “Tier 3,” meaning it is a country whose government does not “fully comply with the minimum standards” and is “not making significant efforts to do so.” The North joins Cuba, Kuwait, Sudan, Zimbabwe and another eight countries in Tier 3, the lowest on the list.
North Korea has been in Tier 3 since 2003, when it first appeared on the TIP.
The TIP recommends that Pyongyang move to “improve the poor economic, social, political, and human rights conditions in North Korea that render North Koreans highly vulnerable to trafficking; recognize human trafficking as a problem in North Korea; cease the systematic punishment of trafficking victims in forced labor camps and others.”
However, the report defines North Korea as a place which has made “little, if any, efforts to combat trafficking in persons through law enforcement efforts over the last year, and continued to severely restrict the movement of its citizens internally and across its borders.” It also adds, “The North Korean government continues to deny the existence of trafficking as a problem. Little information is available on North Korea’s internal legal system.”
The report explains that the most common form of trafficking involves North Korean women and girls who are forced into marriage or prostitution in China. Another form is the forced labor which is a key part of the North Korean system of political repression. As an example, the report mentions “labor mobilization campaign such as the ‘150-Day Battle’ and ‘100-Day Battle’ in 2009.”
North Korea’s notorious prison camps also come up in the report, which says, “An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 persons are held in detention camps in remote areas of the country; many of these prisoners were not duly convicted of a criminal offense. In prison camps, all prisoners, including children, are subject to forced labor, including logging, mining, and farming for long hours under harsh conditions.”
Meanwhile, the TIP also designates China as a country on the State Department’s “Tier 2 Watch List”, just one level above North Korea, and recommends that it “cease the practice of forcibly repatriating North Korean trafficking victims,” pointing out that repatriated North Koreans face harsh punishment upon their return.
Read the full sotry here:
North Koreans Vulnerable to Human Trafficking
Daily NK
Choi Yong Sang
6/15/2010
