Around 100,000 North Koreans worked overseas in 2023, earning about US$500 million for North Korea, indicating that Pyongyang has the means to get around sanctions, a report by the U.N. Security Council’s Panel of experts said.
According to the report, which covers July 2023 to January 2024 and was dated Mar. 7, the workers were sent to around 40 countries to work in construction, hospitality, medicine and information technology.
“These workers are initially dispatched on student or tourist visas; some use false nationalities and identity cards,” the report said. “The vast majority are reportedly working in two countries.”
Though the report did not name those countries, sources have told Radio Free Asia that there are tens of thousands of North Korean workers in Russia and China, with one source saying as recently as December that there were more than 100,000 in China alone.
But the workers can only keep a fraction of their earnings, the report said.
“The remainder is taken by their dispatching agency and in many cases used to purchase items for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the report said, using North Korea’s official name.
More planned
The report said that North Korea also has contracts to send around 400,000 more workers abroad once the border with China opens further after being closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2397, meant to deprive Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs, all North Korean workers were supposed to have returned home by the end of 2019, and no new work visas were to be issued to North Korean citizens since then.
According to RFA reports, some of the workers who were abroad prior to the deadline ended up stranded in China or Russia once North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Though Pyongyang brought some of them home last year, others who have not seen their homes in more than four years remain abroad.
IT workers
Among the various sectors that dispatched North Korean workers are employed in, about 3,000 IT workers abroad and 1,000 at home generate what the panel estimated amounted to between $250-600 million per year.
A report from South Korean outlet NK News quoted human rights activist Sokeel Park as saying that the sanctions should be revised to protect North Korean workers.
“If there is any interim deal that includes sanctions relief with snapback provisions in return for progress on arms controls, sanctions against North Koreans living and working overseas should be relieved first,” Park, the South Korea director of Liberty in North Korea, told NK News.
“If these sanctions are adjusted, they could work in a broader range of countries, their visa situations could be regularized and there could be a push for better compliance with International Labour Organization standards and improvement in conditions and share of pay,” he said.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.