N. Korean workers face forced labor aboard Chinese fishing vessels

North Korean workers face forced labor aboard Chinese tuna longliners operating in the Indian Ocean to generate foreign revenue, potentially in breach of U.N. sanctions, a recent nongovernmental organization report showed Monday.

The Britain-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) released the report, which was based on interviews with Indonesian and Philippine workers who had worked on such Chinese fishing vessels.

The report quoted an interviewee testifying that North Korean crew “would be hidden from port authorities by transferring them at sea between (vessels) before going into port in Mauritius” and were allegedly not allowed to set foot on land the entire time.

Potentially in connection with this, Mauritian authorities in 2022 reportedly detained six North Korean workers when a Chinese fishing vessel docked at Port Louis.

Under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2397 adopted in 2017, member states were required to repatriate all North Koreans earning income within their jurisdiction by December 2019.

The report also claimed that North Korean workers were also not allowed to carry mobile phones, preventing them from contacting their families.

“They never communicated with their wives or others while at sea as they were not allowed to bring a mobile phone,” the report quoted an interviewee as saying.

Another testified to having worked with North Koreans who “had never stepped foot on land for eight years.”

The testimonies suggest “that concerted efforts were made to hide the presence of North Koreans on these vessels, and that those North Koreans on board were forced to work for as many as 10 years at sea, in some instances without ever stepping foot on land,” the report said.

“This would constitute forced labour of a magnitude that surpasses much of that witnessed in a global fishing industry already replete with abuse,” it also noted.