A North Korean who said he escaped round-the-clock labor in the Middle East and Russia voiced fears Friday that Pyongyang was sending more forced workers abroad and appealed for greater international attention.
A North Korean who said he escaped round-the-clock labor in the Middle East and Russia voiced fears Friday that Pyongyang was sending more forced workers abroad and appealed for greater international attention.
Addressing a news conference in Washington, Roh Hui Chang said he reached South Korea in 2014 after two to three months hiding in the bushes and warned that many more North Koreans suffered his plight.
“According to my sources who have knowledge of the current situation there, nothing has changed since my time abroad,” Roh said.
Pointing to sanctions that remain in place on North Korea, Roh said that the number of workers sent overseas “is not going to decrease any time soon. It is going to increase because the hard cash they are getting is crucial to their finances.”
Roh said that many North Koreans eagerly took jobs overseas, even incurring debts to sign up, in hopes of earning a more decent living than in the impoverished state.
But he said that some workers returned from several years of labor with less than $100 to themselves, with the vast majority of the wages pocketed by the North Korean leadership.
