North Koreans forced to work on Chinese tuna ships for years without seeing land
The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) report also alleges the workers were subjected to human rights abuses, including being trapped at sea for years.
The London-based group, which focuses on environmental and human rights issues, identified North Korean workers on 12 Chinese tuna long-liners operating in the southwest Indian Ocean.
The report was based on interviews with 19 Indonesian and Filipino crew members who worked alongside the North Koreans.
The report stated that there were 'concerted efforts to hide the presence of North Koreans on these vessels'.
It also said that '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'.
'This would constitute forced labour of a magnitude that surpasses much of that witnessed in a global fishing industry already replete with abuse.'
The EJF said the North Koreans were transferred between vessels to prevent them from returning to land, and that they were not allowed to use mobile phones or leave their ships during port visits.
EJF said it wasn't able to estimate the number of North Koreans aboard the Chinese vessels because they were all transferred to sister vessels.
The use of North Korean crew is a breach of a 2017 UN Security Council resolution that required member states not to issue work permits to North Koreans and repatriate all remaining North Korean workers from their territories by the end of 2019.
The sanctions were adopted after North Korea tested a long-range missile in violation of other UN Security Council resolutions.
EJF said the use of North Korean crew also appears to have bypassed legal frameworks in the US and the European Union designed to prevent goods produced by North Koreans from entering their supply chains.
Along with Russia, China is suspected of not fully enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea and has vetoed US-led efforts to toughen UN sanctions on North Korea despite its banned weapons tests.
China's Foreign Ministry did not comment immediately.
Before the 2019 UN deadline, tens of thousands of North Koreans were working abroad, mostly at factories and restaurants in China and logging camps and construction sites in Russia, to bring in much-needed foreign currency.
EJF said it's the first time that North Korean labour has been publicly documented on a distant-water fishing vessel.
North Korean workers abroad were in general under the constant surveillance of their country's security agents, toiled more than 12 hours a day and took home only a fraction of their salaries, with the rest going to their government, according to defectors and experts.
Despite the UN ban, South Korean officials and experts believe that a large number of North Korean workers remain engaged in economic activities around the world and transmit money that is used in the North's nuclear weapons programs.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
It's no wonder white working class kids are doing badly at school – politicians have all written them off
ONE reason I have never felt comfortable working in Britain's universities is because unlike most of my academic colleagues and students, I come from the white working class. For the last 20 years, as a university academic and then professor, I routinely found myself as one of only a few people on campus, if not the only person, from this background. 2 2 I was raised by a single mum on the outskirts of London, went to a local state school and then became the first person in my family to go to university. My life experience was completely different from the vast majority of my academic colleagues and students, who either came from financially secure middle-class families or, increasingly, from minority groups. And the truth of the matter, if you look at the bombshell and utterly depressing statistics that are being discussed this week, as hundreds of thousands of children received their GCSE results yesterday, is that the deck was stacked firmly against people like me from the very start. Contrary to what people on the Left like to tell us, that Britain is an 'institutionally racist' country where whites are suppressing minorities and the system is working to exclude non-whites, at every level of our education system the opposite is true. Consistently, it is children from the white working class, especially white working class boys, who are the worst performers and the most likely, by far, to be left behind by the system. Black, Asian and Chinese children now routinely outperform their white working class counterparts at pretty much every level of the education system. In the latest data, for example, just 40 per cent of white British 11-year-olds who rely on free school meals — an indicator of social class — met the expected standard of reading, writing and maths at Key Stage 2. And barely one in three 16-year-olds achieved a grade 4+ in English and maths. Routinely, the only group that performs worse than the white working class are children from gypsy/Roma and traveller backgrounds. In fact, fewer than 19 per cent of white children on free school meals achieve a grade 5 in maths and English, compared to an average of more than 45 per cent for all state pupils. I could go on. White working class boys, especially those from broken homes, are also the least likely of all to progress to university, while universities themselves have been shown by think tanks to focus less effort on recruiting blue-collar kids than often more privileged children who happen to belong to non-white minority groups. So bad have things become that this week even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was forced to recognise the scandal. She voiced her concern that children from white working class families are being 'written off' by society and have been 'failed' by the state, with four fifths of them falling behind the required skills in core subjects to get on in life. This is all well and good. But as a country we've known about their plight for about 20 years and yet nobody in politics has wanted to do anything about it. Why exactly are these kids falling behind? A few years ago, I sat on the House of Commons education committee, and we concluded that a toxic cocktail of factors has been at work for years. A failure to invest in areas outside of London. A tendency within white working class communities not to value the education system. A lack of strong social networks in many of these deteriorating towns. And high rates of family breakdown. 'WHITE PRIVILEGE' But let's be honest for a moment. Something else, something even more sinister, has also been at work in our society, eroding the aspiration and belief that should be driving more of these kids forward. As we saw with the horrific rape gang scandal in towns and cities outside London, this group has simply never been fashionable enough to attract serious attention from a ruling class that in recent years has become utterly besotted, if not obsessed, with uplifting minorities over everybody else. Keir Starmer and his allies might have rushed to take the knee for Black Lives Matter while the BBC waxed lyrical about the dangers of 'white privilege', but they've said little about the fact black children in this country do better at school than white working class kids. And while Starmer talks endlessly about 'fairness' he has, to my knowledge, said nothing at all about the deeply troubling fact that universities routinely offer more scholarships and studentships to minorities than are made available to white kids. Instead, what many on the Left prefer to do is fuel the ongoing demonisation of the white working class in this country by casually deriding them as 'far right', 'Gammons', and 'racist'. Meanwhile, simultaneously de-industrialising their communities through insane Net Zero policies, allowing their families and neighbours to remain out of work in an overly generous welfare regime, undercutting their life prospects and opportunities with endless amounts of mass uncontrolled immigration, and then wondering why people from these backgrounds might feel the deck is stacked firmly against them. The answer to this problem is not to briefly enter the national debate with a few big words, as Phillipson has done, but urgently bring together a cross-party strategy of action to eradicate, once and for all, this stain on our national life.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Date set for Noel Clarke libel claim outcome against Guardian publisher
Actor Noel Clarke is set to discover whether he has been successful in his High Court libel claim against the publisher of the Guardian on Friday. Clarke, 49, is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) over seven articles and a podcast, including an article in April 2021 that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct. Clarke denies the allegations, while GNM is defending its reporting as being both true and in the public interest. A trial earlier this year heard from multiple witnesses who made accusations against Clarke, including that he had allegedly shared nude photographs of them without their consent, groped them, and asked them to look at him when he was exposed. Barristers for Clarke told the court that there is a conspiracy of people with financial and personal grudges against him who engineered his downfall because they could not bear to see him receive a Bafta award. Mrs Justice Steyn is set to hand down her ruling at 10.30am on Friday. The trial of the libel claim was held from early March to early April at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Clarke, who has previously appeared in TV shows including Doctor Who, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Bulletproof, gave evidence over several days. At one stage, he appeared visibly emotional as he claimed the publisher had 'smashed my life'. He said: 'They have smashed my life for four years with this rubbish, this nonsense. Four years.' He continued: 'I did not do this, I would not do this. I have got children. This is not true.' He later said that while he was 'a flawed guy', he added: 'The reason I stand here four years later is I am not what they have branded me.' Philip Williams, representing the actor, said that his client was a 'casualty' of a media 'purge' following the emergence of the MeToo movement. He continued that Clarke was made a 'scapegoat' and was an 'easy target' because he was at the height of his success when the media industry 'zealously sought to correct itself'. The barrister also criticised the Guardian's investigation, saying the newspaper 'manifestly failed to do its job properly'.Mr Williams asked the court to find the claim successful, saying the Guardian's reporting has caused serious harm to Clarke's career, with 'continuing hostile reactions online and in public discourse'. Gavin Millar KC, for GNM, said there is 'not a shred of evidence' to support Clarke's claim of a conspiracy, describing it as 'nonsensical and rather desperate speculation'. He said Clarke has a 'very clear motive to lie' because he 'stands to lose a great deal'. In written submissions, Mr Millar said Clarke 'used his power to prey on and harass female colleagues' over a period of 15 years. He said: 'This was a careful and thorough investigation conducted conscientiously by Guardian journalists who were aware of the potential pitfalls. 'They received information from a wide range of sources with direct evidence of misconduct and in each case carefully considered and tested the information they were given, electing to publish only such information as they believed was credible.'
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Famine officially declared in Gaza for first time by UN-backed group
Famine will be declared in Gaza City for the first time by the international body responsible for monitoring world hunger, The Telegraph can reveal. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has been used to declare just four famines since it was established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year. Although the IPC has previously warned famine is imminent in parts of Gaza, it has until now stopped short of making a formal declaration, citing a lack of hard data. However, on Friday morning, it will formally declare a famine in Gaza City, the last remaining major built-up area of Gaza and home to some 500,000 people. The declaration will outrage the Israeli government, which has consistently denied that famine is taking place in Gaza and is currently moving on Gaza City. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Thursday he would give final approval for the takeover of the city, one of Hamas's last strongholds. In order to declare a famine, three strict criteria must be met: at least 20 per cent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 per cent of children suffer acute malnutrition, and two people for every 10,000 die each day due to 'outright starvation'. The IPC will state that a famine is taking place in the 'Gaza Governorate', which comprises Gaza City, three surrounding towns, and several refugee camps, according to a briefing shared with its partner organisations and seen by The Telegraph. 'After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death,' says the IPC briefing. It adds that the famine is projected to expand to the governorates of Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September on current projections. Another 1.07 million people – over half of Gaza's population – are already facing 'emergency' levels of food insecurity, the second-highest level on the scale, the briefing adds. The Telegraph has contacted the Israeli government for comment. Mr Netanyahu has faced international backlash over the situation in Gaza, with Israel earlier this month announcing measures to let more aid into Gaza. He insisted 'hundreds of trucks' had been allowed in and said that if Israel was implementing a 'starvation policy', then 'no one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war'. He pointed to disturbing images of Evyatar David, a 24-year-old Israeli hostage who looked severely malnourished in a video released by Hamas. He said: 'The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages.' The Israeli prime minister vowed on Thursday to take over all of Gaza City militarily. The wide-scale operation in the city could start within days, with preliminary operations already under way in the area. Earlier this week it was announced that call-up orders were being issued to 60,000 reservists of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ahead of the full-scale assault on the city. Israeli troops are now said to have established a foothold on the outskirts of the city after days of intensive bombing, and Palestinians are fleeing the area in large numbers. The IPC – whose 21 partner organisations include Save the Children, Oxfam and Unicef – is forecasting that food security in Gaza will continue to deteriorate between the middle of August and end of September. 'During this period, almost a third of the population – nearly 641,000 people – are expected to face catastrophic conditions, while the number of people in emergency will likely increase to 1.14 million,' it says. This marks 'the first time a famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region', the briefing says, although the region has suffered hunger crises historically. It is only the fifth time a famine has been formally declared by the IPC, with the previous four all in sub-Saharan Africa. Israel has been under intense pressure to allow more food into Gaza, facing international criticism over its aid blockade, which has ebbed and flowed since the Hamas attacks on Oct 7 in which nearly 1,195 were murdered and 251 were taken hostage. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said on Thursday that 271 people had so far died from starvation in Gaza, 112 of them children. More than half of that figure has been in the last three weeks alone. In total, the Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war stands at 62,192, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry. Mr Netanyahu last month defended Israel's handling of the humanitarian disaster in the enclave, claiming 'there is no starvation in Gaza'. 'We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans,' Mr Netanyahu said. The famine declaration comes as David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, signed a statement accusing the Israeli government of a violation of international law over its plans to press ahead with an illegal settlement that would divide the occupied West Bank Britain and Israel have been at loggerheads ever since Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK would recognise a Palestinian state in September. Israel's military on Thursday said it had warned medical officials and international organisations to prepare for the planned evacuation of Gaza City's residents ahead of its ground offensive to occupy it. The officials were told that 'adjustments' were being made to hospitals in southern Gaza to receive patients, a statement said.
