Smuggled Video Shows North Korean Children Forced to Repair Railway Line
American elementary children go play dodgeball during physical education periods while in North Korea their elementary students are used to go break and haul rocks to repair a railway line:
Grafting in the blazing sun, Kim Jong-un ’s child slaves load heavy rocks into sacks as others mend railway tracks with hammers.
Taken out of lessons and forced to carry out back-breaking work, they toil for up to 10 hours a day.
The footage of North Korea ’s human rights abuses, uncovered by the Daily Mirror, will shock the world.
Yet in his palace hundreds of miles away, despot Jong-un enjoys a life of luxury and thinks nothing of enslaving innocents as young as five.
Michael Glendinning, of the European Alliance of Human Rights in North Korea, said: “The footage obtained by the Mirror is startling in its documentation of one of the worst abuses the North Korean state inflicts – child labour.” [The UK Mirror]
You can read more and see the video at the link.
If the West really cared about this, would we make a bunch of mealy-mouthed speeches and promise to meet again in six months — or would we end KJU and his evil regime?
Merry Christmas. Hope we all have fun stuffing ourselves.
Alternate photo caption: “Schoolchildren take field trip to rehearse for upcoming school production of “I’ve Been Working on the Rail Road””.
Hmmm… a couple observations here…
Note that none if the kids appear to be starving or in bad health… and they are not poorly dressed. They are working hard, and perhaps doing labor that kids in the modern world should not be forced to do, but they do not look neglected or abused…
…which moves on to the next observation that I have personally seen hundreds of kids (and old people) tasked with breaking bolders into rocks into gravel by hand in Burma and it seemed perfectly normal in a country trying to develop with no machines to do this needed service. Everyone was working at the rate they were capible of without any slavedrivers… looking like a job rather than a punishment or torture… pretty much like the North Korean video…
…and in comparison to what goes on in parts of Africa or South America, these kids look downright fortunate…
…which reminds us that America still used child labor in somewhat the same way less than 80 years ago when America was still “developing”…
…and in a final shocker…
“However, the 1938 labor law giving protections to working children excludes agriculture. As a result, approximately 500,000 children pick almost a quarter of the food currently produced in the United States.”
Yes… for just-as-backbreaking work, America still uses child labor… though (presumably) with some sort of higher standards… maybe.
(I know an English teacher who did every bit as miserable work as this on a dairy farm as a child for low pay)
No excuse or apology is being made for North Korea in general here… but this report seems to be more propaganda or sensationalism rather than actual news when things are put into perspective.
This election cycle has been so full of fake news from all sides, it reminds us that everything needs to be thought through before being blindly accepted.
Anyone have an opinion on my opinion?
@Chickenhead, I agree that the children do not look malnourished like other images of children we have seen come out of North Korea. I also agree that 100+ years ago the United States was using child labor. For example the children used to do labor in coal mines was far worse then moving and breaking rocks.
Notice that I did not title this post as slave labor as many others have called it. I think “forced child labor” is more accurate. I doubt these kids have much of choice of whether they want to work or not. Forced labor is something often done in North Korea that allows the Kim regime to keep costs down. Just about everyone in the country has experienced forced labor at some point except for Kim Jong-un’s fat body.