The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team released a joint statement and report documenting the scope of North Korea’s overseas labor program on Sept. 16, detailing how the Kim regime generates hard currency in potential violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions.
The report details how the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea deploys workers abroad to earn revenue that could fund the regime’s weapons programs, including its nuclear and ballistic missile development efforts, the State Department said. The monitoring team includes partners from multiple U.S.-allied governments.
North Korea’s overseas labor operations generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to previous U.S. government and United Nations estimates. Workers are sent to countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe, often under conditions that international organizations have described as forced labor.
United Nations Security Council resolutions adopted in 2017 required member states to repatriate all North Korean workers by December 2019. The monitoring team report documents continued violations of those deadlines, indicating that some countries continue to host North Korean laborers despite the international mandate.
For Americans, the issue is directly tied to national security. Revenue from overseas labor helps finance a nuclear weapons program that poses a direct threat to the U.S. homeland, U.S. military forces in the Pacific and key American allies including South Korea and Japan.
The multilateral nature of the monitoring team reflects a coordinated allied effort to enforce sanctions and close loopholes that the North Korean regime has exploited. The team’s findings are expected to inform future diplomatic pressure on countries that continue hosting North Korean workers.
The State Department released the joint statement through the Office of the Spokesman. The report’s specific country-by-country findings were detailed in the full document accompanying the statement.