Reuters has a fascinating account of North Korean forced labour in Russia. The North Korean government ships labor teams, a holdover from the Soviet era, to Vladivostok where they live in dormitories and work for Russians under the strict supervision of plainclothes DPRK police. North Korea’s compelled to turn out their labor force to gain hard currency. The North Korean labor force is all over it: officials in the DPRK are being bribed for spots on the teams. The piece doesn’t mention it, but there would certainly be consequences to allowing these labor teams to see how a capitalist system works — even if it’s Russia.
The North Korea Pimps Out Citizens to Russia by Gunnar Hellekson, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
I'm the Chief Technology Strategist for the Red Hat US Public Sector group, an open source and free culture advocate, a picky drinker, an amateur aesthete, and a dog enthusiast.