A forced labor case from 2024 in Shanghai, China. 1 source on file.
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North Korean workers in forced labor at Chinese garment factories. Wages sent directly to DPRK government, workers under constant surveillance. Accused: DPRK state labor export program.
UN Special Rapporteur documentation. Limited; diplomatic sensitivity prevents enforcement. UN OHCHR.
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Of sorts. The victim, Shenqi, was incarcerated first at the Shanghai Municipal Prison for political crimes in 1983. By 1994, he was working at the 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion Shanghai Reeducation-through-Labor (Laojiao) Camp in Dafeng County, Jiangsu Province. In cooperation with a state-run knitting mill, he was forced along with other inmates to manufacture clothing for as long as 20 hours per day. Eventually, Shengqi moved to a different labor camp in which he made Christmas lights for export from the Haiman Lamp Company. Direct quote from Shenqi's personal testimony: "On laojiao farms, inmates were often beaten and cursed. The government cadres cuffed and kicked them at will. Those laojiao inmates trusted to supervise other inmates beat and cursed them even more." All of the above information is from "To Plead Our Own Cause" by Dr. Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd - Cornell University Press - 2008.
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Name: Age: 30 Female North Korea refugee Name: Age: 40 Female North Korea refugee Two ethnic Korean Chinese living in the South were also arrested for working with the pair in China. Police also suspect that another North Korean refugee in China and a South Korean who lives overseas acted as accomplices. Police said that over a two-year period the pair acquired 70-80 North Korean women fresh from their impoverished homeland, about half of them from Chinese brokers. They paid the brokers about 3.6 million South Korean won ($3,298) for each woman. The pair allegedly forced the women into prostitution in night-time establishments they operated in the northeastern Chinese city of Qingdao between 2007 and 2009. Two female refugees from North Korea have been arrested in South Korea for allegedly forcing fellow fugitives into prostitution while they were in China, police said Tuesday.
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Ji Xiulan, believed to be aged in her 60s, had been a fugitive since the trafficking ring was busted in 2003. Ji is allegedley one of the leaders of the gang accused of selling 118 babies between 2002 and 2003. Of the 118 babies, the eldest was three months old, with the youngest just two days, the Yulin Intermediate People's Court said. The families of the babies were paid only a few dollars for the infants, who were later sold for $130-$260. This has been the largest trafficking ring in China since the formation of the People's Republic of China. The case is said to be linked with China's "one child" family planning policy.