North Korea has sentenced the children of two defectors to hard labour under strict supervision in a case that paints a picture of the harsh treatment meted out to the relatives of those who flee the regime.



Details of the children’s fate emerged from a local source, who said they had been sent to an agricultural factory in Haeju city in the south of the country after authorities learned that their parents were sending them money.

North Korean defectors have often spoken of their fears for their families left behind, who are targeted partly as punishment, partly to act as a deterrent to others and partly to prevent them following suit.

“After their parents defected, two 20-year-old children were forced to do hard labour in the blast furnace of an agricultural machinery plant in Daegok district of Haeju city,” said the source in South Hwanghae Province.

“They have been put under the watchful scrutiny of the factory managers and agents from the State Security Department. They aren’t given a single minute of free time or privacy.”

These details cannot be independently verified because of restrictions that hinder the free flow of information from interior regions of North Korea.

The children’s parents escaped three years ago after being sent to a re-education camp in Jeungsan for so-called “anti-socialist” crimes. They carried out a year of their sentence before managing to defect.

“They were initially listed as missing persons, but after catching wind of a rumour that they had escaped to the South and had sent money back to their children, the State Security Department began a vigorous surveillance campaign,” he said.

Unlike northerly Hamkyung, where there are a large number of escape attempts, defection is relatively rare from the Hwanghae region of North Korea.

When the authorities heard through an informant that the parents were using a broker to send money to their children still in the North, both parents and children were labelled as defectors.

The agricultural factory in Haeju is notorious for being a particularly harsh workplace, which could be why the children of defectors were sent there. The conditions make it unlikely that they would be able to follow their parents into exile, said the source, who added that the pair had been “branded as subversive individuals and carefully monitored by the factory management”.

“A year has passed since the children were relocated from their homes and moved into the factory dormitory. A few months ago, they left the factory to go to the market without official permission. Before an hour had passed, factory officials declared an emergency situation,” the source said.

“The managing director in charge said, ‘Inspections were carried out carelessly. I am ordering surveillance to be undertaken more strictly moving forward.’”

Because they have been branded as a defector family, factory management has to issue regular reports to the security authorities outlining the children’s behaviour and whereabouts. This is “obviously dreadful for the children, [but] dealing with the SSD is no doubt a burden for the factory management as well,” the source said.

Translated by Jonathan Corrado