North Korea making a living off staff processing fish for US market, AP investigation finds

James Peckham 3 days ago world Leave a comment 16 Views
HUNCHUN, China — The employees get up every morning on steel bunk beds in fluorescent-lit Chinese language dormitories, North Koreans outsourced by their authorities to course of seafood that leads to American shops and houses.
Privateness is forbidden. They can’t depart their compounds with out permission. They need to take the few steps to the factories in pairs or teams, with North Korean minders guaranteeing nobody strays. They don’t have any entry to telephones or electronic mail. And they’re paid a fraction of their salaries, whereas the remaining – as a lot as 70 % – is taken by North Korea’s authorities.
This implies People shopping for salmon for dinner at Walmart or ALDI might inadvertently have backed the North Korean authorities because it builds its nuclear weapons program, an AP investigation has discovered. Their purchases may have supported what america calls “modern-day slavery” – even when the roles are extremely coveted by North Koreans.

At a time when North Korea faces sanctions on many exports, the federal government is sending tens of 1000’s of staff worldwide, bringing in income estimated at wherever from $200 million to $500 million a yr. That might account for a large portion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile applications, which South Korea says have price greater than $1 billion.

Whereas the presence of North Korean staff abroad has been documented, the AP investigation reveals for the primary time that some merchandise they make go to america, which is now a federal crime. AP additionally tracked the merchandise made by North Korean staff to Canada, Germany and elsewhere within the European Union.

In addition to seafood, AP discovered North Korean laborers making wooden flooring and stitching clothes in factories in Hunchun. These industries additionally export to the U.S. from Hunchun, however AP didn’t monitor particular shipments apart from seafood.

American corporations should not allowed to import merchandise made by North Korean staff wherever on this planet, underneath a regulation signed by President Donald Trump in early August. Importers or firm officers might face felony expenses for utilizing North Korean staff or materially benefiting from their work, in accordance with the regulation.

Each Western firm concerned that responded to AP’s requests for remark mentioned pressured labor and potential help for North Korea’s weapons program had been unacceptable of their provide chains. Many mentioned they had been going to research, and a few mentioned they’d already reduce off ties with suppliers.

John Connelly, president of the Nationwide Fisheries Institute, the most important seafood commerce affiliation within the U.S., mentioned his group was urging all of its corporations to instantly re-examine their provide chains “to make sure that wages go to the employees, and should not siphoned off to help a harmful dictator.”

“Whereas we perceive that hiring North Korean staff could also be authorized in China,” mentioned Connelly, “we’re deeply involved that any seafood corporations may very well be inadvertently propping up the despotic regime.”

Exporting labor

North Koreans abroad work in development within the Gulf states, shipbuilding in Poland, logging in Russia. In Uruguay, authorities informed AP, about 90 North Koreans crewed fishing boats final yr. U.N. sanctions now bar nations from authorizing new work permits for North Korean staff however don’t goal these already overseas.

Roughly three,000 North Koreans are believed to work in Hunchun, a far northeast Chinese language industrial hub only a few miles from the borders of each North Korea and Russia. Indicators on this mercantile metropolis are in Chinese language, Korean and Russian. Korean eating places promote chilly noodles, a Northern favourite, and Russian truckers cease into nightclubs with black bread on the menu.

In an effort to spice up the native economic system, China and North Korea agreed a number of years in the past to permit factories to contract for teams of North Korean staff, establishing an industrial zone with bargain-priced labor. Since then dozens of fish processing corporations have opened in Hunchun, together with different producers. Utilizing North Korean staff is authorized in China, and never thought of pressured labor.
It is unknown what situations are like in all factories within the area, however AP reporters noticed North Koreans dwelling and dealing in a number of of the Hunchun services underneath the watchful eye of their overseers. The employees should not allowed to talk to reporters. Nevertheless, the AP recognized them as North Korean in quite a few methods: the portraits of North Korea’s late leaders they’ve of their rooms, their distinctive accents, interviews with a number of Hunchun businesspeople. The AP additionally reviewed North Korean laborer paperwork, together with copies of a North Korean passport, a Chinese language work allow and a contract with a Hunchun firm.
When a reporter approached a gaggle of North Koreans – ladies in tight, vibrant polyester garments getting ready their meals at a Hunchun garment manufacturing facility – one confirmed that she and a few others had been from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Then a minder arrived, ordering the employees to be silent: “Do not speak to him!”
Their contracts are sometimes for 2 or three years, and they don’t seem to be allowed to go dwelling early. The restrictions they work underneath make them very invaluable workers. North Korean laborers are “extra secure” than Chinese language staff, mentioned Li Shasha, a gross sales supervisor at Yanbian Shenghai Trade and Commerce Co., a significant Hunchun seafood processor.
Chinese language staff have job protections that give them the best to take break day, whereas North Korean staff full their contracts with few complaints, uncommon sick days and virtually no turnover.
“They will not take a depart for some private purpose,” mentioned Li, whose firm shipped containers of squid and snow crab to the united statesand Canada in July and August.
They’re additionally usually thought of cheaper. Li mentioned that on the Yanbian Shenghai manufacturing facility, the North Koreans’ wage is similar as for the Chinese language, roughly $300 to $385 monthly. However others say North Koreans are routinely paid about $300 a month in comparison with as much as $540 for Chinese language.
Both manner, the North Korean authorities of Kim Jong Un retains wherever from half to 70 % of their pay, in accordance with students who’ve surveyed former laborers. It passes on to the employees as little as $90 monthly – or roughly 46 cents per hour.

The work could be exhausting, with shifts lasting as much as 12 hours and most staff getting simply sooner or later off every week. At some factories, laborers work hunched over tables as North Korean political slogans are blasted from waist-high loudspeakers.

By means of dozens of interviews, commentary, commerce information and different public and confidential paperwork, AP recognized three seafood processors that make use of North Koreans and export to the U.S.: Three way partnership Hunchun Dongyang Seafood Trade & Commerce Co. Ltd. & Hunchun Pagoda Trade Co. Ltd. distributed globally by Ocean One Enterprise; Yantai Dachen Hunchun Seafood Merchandise, and Yanbian Shenghai Trade & Commerce Co. Ltd.

They’re getting their seafood from China, Russia and, in some circumstances like snow crab, Alaska. Though AP noticed North Korean staff at Hunchun Dongyang, supervisor Zhu Qizhen mentioned they do not rent North Korean staff any extra and refused to provide particulars. The opposite Chinese language corporations did not reply to repeated requests for remark.

Delivery information seen by the AP present greater than 100 cargo containers of seafood, greater than 2,000 tons, had been despatched to the U.S. and Canada this yr from the factories the place North Koreans had been working in China.

Packages of snow crab, salmon fillets, squid rings and extra had been imported by American distributors, together with Sea-Trek Enterprises in Rhode Island, and The Fishin’ Firm in Pennsylvania. Sea-Trek exports seafood to Europe, Australia, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. The Fishin’ Firm provides retailers and meals service corporations, in addition to supermarkets.

The Fishin’ Firm mentioned it reduce its ties with Hunchun processors and bought its final cargo this summer season, however seafood can stay within the provide chain for greater than a yr. House owners of each corporations mentioned they had been very involved in regards to the North Korean laborers, and deliberate to research.

Typically the seafood arrives in generic packaging, however some was already branded in China with acquainted names like Walmart or Sea Queen, a seafood model bought solely at ALDI supermarkets, which has 1,600 shops throughout 35 states. There is not any option to say the place a selected bundle finally ends up, nor what share of the factories’ merchandise wind up within the U.S.

Walmart spokeswoman Marilee McInnis mentioned firm officers discovered in an audit a yr in the past that there have been potential labor issues at a Hunchun manufacturing facility, and that they’d banned their suppliers, together with The Fishin’ Firm, from getting seafood processed there. She mentioned The Fishin’ Firm had “responded constructively” however didn’t specify how.

Some U.S. manufacturers and firms had oblique ties to the North Korean laborers in Hunchun, together with Rooster of the Sea, owned by Thai Union. Commerce information present shipments got here from a sister firm of the Hunchun manufacturing facility in one other a part of China, the place Thai Union spokeswoman Whitney Small says labor requirements are being met and the workers are all Chinese language. Small mentioned the sister corporations shouldn’t be penalized.

Shipments additionally went to 2 Canadian importers, Morgan Meals and Alliance Seafood, which didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Containers on the factories had markings from a number of main German grocery store chains and types – All-Fish distributors, REWE and Penny grocers and Icewind model. REWE Group, which additionally owns the Penny chain, mentioned that they used to do enterprise with Hunchun Dongyang however the contract has expired. All the businesses that responded mentioned their suppliers had been forbidden to make use of pressured labor.

Hidden lives

North Korean staff in China are underneath way more intense surveillance than these in Russia and the Center East, specialists say. That is possible as a result of Pyongyang fears they might comply with within the footsteps of tens of 1000’s of their countrymen who escaped to China, or they might work together with South Koreans dwelling in China.

“If a North Korean needs to go abroad, China is his or her least favorable choice,” mentioned Andrei Lankov, a North Korea professional at Kookmin College in South Korea. “As a result of in China, (factories) have primarily prison-like situations.”
https://ne2y.com/north-korea-making-...igation-finds/



North Korean Slave Labor Used to Process Fish Sold in US Stores

Thursday, October 5, 2017
A customer shops for fish at a supermarket in Beijing, China.

An investigation found that North Koreans were being sent to fish processing plants in a Chinese border town to process fish exported to stores in the United States and other countries.

Aldi and Walmart were both identified as sellers of fish using North Korean labor, according to an investigation by The Associated Press. Under sanctions, the practice is illegal. The United States currently considers all forms of North Korean labor slave labor. North Korea takes up to 70 percent of the wages its workers make abroad, and uses the money to prop up the regime and its $1 billion nuclear weapons program. Plants in Hunchun were found using North Korean workers.

The North Korean workers aren’t permitted to mix with the Chinese workers in the same factory, and their speech and movements are tightly controlled and monitored. Pictures of the two deceased North Korean communist leaders hang on dormitory walls across from metal bunk beds, AP video footage shows.

Experts said China is just about the worst option for North Koreans working abroad, because of the jail-like conditions. But for North Koreans, a job abroad is highly coveted. Even with the government taking away 70 percent of wages that are already low, they still make a little more money than they could within North Korea. And in a nation where leaving or entering is tightly restricted, taking even a small step across the border is highly coveted.

There are about 3,000 North Koreans working in the city of Hunchun. Workers exported by North Korea are exploited for $200 million to $500 million per year that goes back to the regime. Some North Koreans work in Russia or the Middle East, but the majority work in China.

“If a North Korean wants to go overseas, China is his or her least favorable option,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in South Korea. “Because in China, [factories] have essentially prison-like conditions.”
The workers are favored by greedy factory owners because they have even less rights than Chinese workers, and often get paid less. They work 12-hour days, six days a week. They can’t take time off, and rarely are allowed to leave the factory compound where they sleep, work, and play. They will be away from their families for years at a time.

“Instead of making the goods in North Korea and trying to export them, which wouldn’t work because of sanctions regime, you export the North Koreans,” said Former Ambassador to Monitor & Combat Trafficking in Persons Luis C. deBaca. “You make the goods somewhere else and then you get the money back into North Korea.”

About a dozen U.S. companies sell fish using North Korean slave labor, according to the investigation. Some of those companies have already cut off those parts of their supply chains, others said they are investigating the matter.

http://www.ntd.tv/2017/10/05/north-k...-in-us-stores/