Political Prisoners and Forced Labor Camps Push North Koreans Abroad

Photo: This One Earth - Geoff Henson

North Korea operates the most extensive system of political imprisonment and forced labour in the world, incarcerating an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 people in political prison camps (kwanliso) where prisoners are subjected to forced labour, systematic torture, starvation, and public execution.[1] The state's all-encompassing surveillance and songbun (social classification) system determines every aspect of citizens' lives — where they may live, work, travel, and marry — based on the perceived loyalty of their family across three generations. Escape from North Korea is itself a criminal act punishable by imprisonment or death.[2]

Political Prison Camps: The Kwanliso System

North Korea's kwanliso camps — identified through defector testimony and satellite imagery — hold political prisoners and their families under the principle of collective punishment (yeon-jwa-je), whereby the family members of political offenders are imprisoned alongside them.[3] The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (2014) found that the camps constitute a "crime against humanity of extermination" through deliberate starvation, forced labour in mines and logging operations, and executions. Former prisoners have described public executions performed as entertainment for other inmates, systematic rape of female prisoners by guards, and the killing of infants born to imprisoned women.

"In Camp 22, we were not people. We were tools. If a tool broke, it was discarded. I saw people executed for eating a few grains of corn from the field they were harvesting."
Former kwanliso prisoner, testimony to UN Commission of Inquiry, 2014

The Songbun System: Hereditary Discrimination

North Korea's songbun (social class background) system classifies citizens into 51 categories across three broad classes — "core," "wavering," and "hostile" — based on family history dating to the Korean War era and the Japanese colonial period.[4] Those classified as "hostile" — descendants of landlords, Christians, those who collaborated with or fled to South Korea — are systematically excluded from education above a basic level, desirable employment, residence in Pyongyang, and Party membership. This hereditary discrimination persists regardless of an individual's own conduct, creating a structurally persecuted underclass.

Defectors: Risk During Escape and Upon Return

North Koreans who flee to China — the primary transit route — do not receive refugee protection, as China treats them as illegal economic migrants and returns them to North Korea in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.[5] Returned defectors face imprisonment in kyohwaso labour camps, torture, and execution — with severity depending on what activities they engaged in while abroad (contact with South Koreans, religious practice, or media interviews resulting in the most severe punishment). Women who were trafficked in China — a pervasive phenomenon — face additional prosecution upon return.