S. Korea to release report on forced labor in N. Korea for 1st time

Koo Byoung-sam, a spokesperson for the unification ministry, speaks at a press conference at the government complex in Seoul, June 19. Yonhap

South Korea plans to disclose a report on forced labor practices in North Korea for the first time as part of efforts to raise awareness on human rights violations in the secretive regime, the unification ministry said Tuesday.

The report will be based on interviews conducted with North Korean defectors who have arrived in the South over the past five years, as the ministry plans to carry out an in-depth inquiry into forced labor practices in the North this year.

The ministry plans to look into changes in forced labor practices before and after the launch of the Kim Jong-un regime in 2011 and the relevant laws and systems of forced labor.

The government will also push to make public reports on other aspects of the North's human rights records, such as North Korean women's rights and people's right to work.

The North Korean Human Rights Records Center, affiliated with the ministry, has carried out inquiries into the North's rights records and written related reports for internal reference without opening them to the public.

"But given the need to raise awareness about the human rights situation in North Korea, we plan to release the results, excluding personal information," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Since taking power in May last year, President Yoon Suk Yeol has stressed the need to inform the international community of the dismal rights and living conditions facing North Koreans and to take a hard-line stance against the North's provocations.

In late March, the ministry publicly released a report on North Korea's human rights situation for the first time. The government will also publish a report on economic and social situations in the North in November.

Meanwhile, responding to why the North recently reinstated Kim Yong-chol, a former top North Korean party official in charge of affairs with South Korea, the ministry official said the move may signal Pyongyang's push to bolster its activities regarding the South.

"Kim is an expert who has engaged in inter-Korean dialogue and the North's affairs with South Korea. Against this backdrop, we presume that the North may be aiming to strengthen its response in that area," the official said.

Kim, 77, served as the North's top negotiator in denuclearization talks with the United States, but his political status was severely damaged following the breakdown of the Hanoi summit in 2019.

The North's state media reported Monday that Kim has been elected an alternate member of the political bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea, describing him as an "advisor" to the party's department handling inter-Korean affairs. (Yonhap)

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