72 North Koreans working in Malta

72 North Koreans employed by 11 companies are currently working legally in Malta, official statistics show. These include 41 working at Leisure Clothing, the clothing company owned by a Chinese municipality.

Statistics presented in parliament shows that the number of North Koreans working in Malta increased from one worker employed in the “craft and related trade” sector in 2010, to 11 with an “unknown occupation” in 2011. The number of North Koreans increased to 22 in March 2014 and to 72 in 2015.

Employers are legally obliged to abide with Maltese law when employing workers from other countries. But MaltaToday is informed of cases where accommodation and food costs are allegedly deducted from the monthly wage of foreign workers. Questions sent to the Department for Industrial and Employment Relations (DIER) and Identity Malta, on whether these international reports are being investigated locally, have not been answered.

The exploitation of North Korean workers was recently flagged by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, which accused Malta and Poland of employing “forced labour” from North Korea.

The report alleged that North Korean workers, who are typically on three- or four-year labour contracts, channel a large proportion of their earnings to the North Korean authoritarian government led by Kim Jong-un and are only allowed to keep a fraction of their wages.

While most of the 50,000 North Koreans on such schemes are currently working in Asian and Middle Eastern countries – some 1,800 are believed to be helping Qatar in its preparations for the 2022 World Cup – up to 1,000 may be working in the EU, the report’s authors said.

In another report to the UN General Assembly, Marzuki Darusman, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, revealed that North Korean workers are being used as a new source of income for the North Korean government.

Darusman said foreign companies hiring workers from the country were ‘complicit in an unacceptable system of forced labour.’

He said more than 50,000 North Korean workers are employed in foreign countries, mainly in the mining, logging, textile and construction industries, according to various studies – and added that the number is rising.

The vast majority are working in China and Russia but others are reportedly employed in countries including Algeria, Angola, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Oman, Poland, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Darusman said civil society organisations report that these workers earn €110-€140 per month on average and are sometimes forced to work up to 20 hours a day, with only one or two rest days a month and insufficient food. Employers pay “significantly higher amounts” to the North Korean government, Darusman said.