SEOUL, South Korea - A North Korean who worked abroad as a waitress said she was forced to sit with male customers who touched and tried his intoxicated state in China. Two more recalls mounted on his country they are frozen in the Russian logging camps body. Another said he was surrounded for 16 hours a day on a construction site of Kuwait workup of barbed wire.
So difficult was this life, said the four workers The Associated Press that remain beat the north. Jobs were actually transported home state and so popular that people use bribes and family connections to get them.
"I have to beat the odds of 1 to 12, to be a waitress ... the view of the jobs of the people in North Korea from here are completely different," Lee Sung Hee said, 42, who worked in a Korean restaurant in north the Chinese city of Dalian, running in the northeast 2000s and now lives in South Korea. "The North Korean women have a fantasy about a waitress who works abroad."
The stories of Lee and the other three workers, one of which even to put all deserted South Korea a hint about the fate of tens of thousands of workers from North Korea abroad on a mission to compete currencies. Human rights organizations called slave laborers of the modern era, while denouncing the violation of the rights of the human face of North Korea at home. Last week South Korea announced the defection of 13 North Koreans who had worked together in a restaurant abroad.
The defectors, who worked from 1990 to early 2000. Abroad, said that they had to present a large part of their wages to the authorities in Pyongyang and was never promised a part of his salary. But they said, the money they receive, sometimes obtained by moonlighting, far beyond what they had gained at home.
They said they were relatively well fed, under strict supervision and less gives them a rare opportunity to see the world and learn truths about their country.
Lee had planned abroad to increase its experience their social status, so you can make a man with a better job. The other three workers wanted all people to buy televisions, cassette players and refrigerators after three years typical service.
"People who had seen the home after good foreign service smoking cigarettes had returned and go have a beer," Lim Il said, who has worked in a construction of Kuwait in late 1990 "for ordinary people, things like this were "rice cakes in a picture", a cake Korean equivalent phrase "in the sky. "
North Koreans working abroad have recently similar views, South Korean experts and activists interviewed runners current workers or the experience of recent foreign service.
The average monthly salary of ordinary workers in North Korea is less than $ 1, according to defectors. Many families in North Korea now earn money through unauthorized business in the markets.
"In our view, the exploitation of labor. But for them abroad, a particular advantage. They see it as an opportunity to get out of the terrible family life", Myong Go hyun said the Asan Institute, headquartered in Seoul for Political Studies , co-author of a research paper in 2014, North Korean workers. "The problem is that North Korea misuse of this."
North Korea denies its workers abused, international critics a plot you call to subvert the system.
Spy agency of South Korea said 50,000 to 60,000 North Korean workers in about 50 countries, mainly from Russia and China; Some experts believe that the number of foreign workers is much higher. North Korea Seoul-based Center strategy, said in an article in 2012 that foreign workers have won in the land north between $ 150 million and $ 230 million per year.
There is a consensus among experts outside North Korea pushing the export of labor to increase, provided that the international sanctions have left the country with few legitimate sources of foreign currency foreign, are executed.
They work in factories and restaurants in China; and areas of wood and construction in Russia. Other construction work in the Middle East or in Africa build giant statues political, teaching Taekwondo or the provision of health care. Their average monthly income was at $ 120 to $ 150, estimated by the Asan Institute.
The North often sends relatively wealthy citizens, loyal, according to him, can be less influenced by foreign cultures. The vast majority are married men whose families to stay at home, discourage future runners, analysts and activists in North Korea specialized, he said.
Lee taught through literature and students of North Korea, if they do not miss to be a waitress abroad the opportunity. Lee said that his father gave local officials at 15,000 won (about $ 70) to help the waitress station lift. Other options were the other teachers, doctors and graduates.
Lim used 20 bottles of premium spirits and 30 packs of cigarettes as a bribe. Kim Sae-gil, a truck driver in a record field of Siberia, a father a few strands pulled said.
"When I was informed that I would like to go abroad, I felt very, very happy," Kim, 49, who worked in Siberia from 1995 to 1998 'It was a feeling I never experienced since. yet is probably the best time of my life. "
Much of the work experience abroad, but it was dark.
Lee Sung Hee he said given one month one day and had to work even when he learned that his mother had died. He said, to hide secret police agents, controlled the fight, the Council waitresses.
"There were customers who affect our body, but not refuse, because our task is to curry favor with them as much as possible was your money to spend," he said. "When customers pay drinks for us, we were all drinking. But we could not drunk or had not been loyal to the party criticized."
He said that colleagues who could not get revenue goals should go to motels to have sex with customers to pay about 650 yuan ($ 100).
Lee found some positive aspects. She said she likes the fruit that has never eaten, including pineapple, pears and thorny longans.
Lim, a writer who was a carpenter during his few months in Kuwait. He said he never received his salary $ 120 per month promised, but worked from morning until midnight surrounded in an area with barbed wire. He said he was frustrated when he found Bangladesh and nearby Indonesian workers at least earning $ 450 per month.
Lim, he said at the moon on other construction sites were allowed to reduce additional revenue by North Korean officials promising.
Lee Yong-ho, a renegade who was a truck driver for a logging camp in Russia, said he often worked 12 to 14 hours a day, but never thought about working conditions.
"Slaves? Well, thinking of something. I thought I could win every month," Lee, now a worker in South Korea said.
Kim, who worked in another lumber camp in Siberia, many after being hit with about 900 other North Koreans who died dozens of workers during their stay by falling trees. Workers said the dead for months in empty houses, were kept wrapped in blankets with the whole body except the head.
"It was so cold that had not decomposed. Their faces were exactly the same as before," he said. "Once I get some of their faces and was touching the ice."
Lee Yong-ho also frozen body seen stored. It was cheaper than at home in groups.
Kim said he had an extra income, because sometimes he was allowed to choose wild fruits for sale. He liked to drink with colleagues and leader Kim Jong Il ridicule then - the late father of current leader Kim Jong Un.
"Call him," if we were Kim Jong Il General "If we" "in North Korea," he said. "We even called a" little boy ", as he was small. We had such freedom exists."
The four workers eventually escaped to work abroad.
"I'm not back to a lower country," Lee Sung Hee, who fled with a customer in South Korea said that now her husband. Lee teaches now defector students in Seoul.
It was later forced the North Korean authorities learned to his family removed or subjected to move closer monitoring systems in revenge against his defection places.
The other three workers know nothing about the fate of their families.
Kim said that although he is not ruled by North Korea to return "for a taste of freedom always", he misses his family, including a daughter he left behind.
"It 22 be" Kim, who is now a janitor, said near Seoul. "I always think about it."
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Follow Hyung-jin Kim on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hyungjin1972
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