But the victims are forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitive labor
arrangements once they are in China, which shares North Korea's border, it
said.
The North Korean government recruits its citizens to work overseas at foreign
firms, and while there is no evidence of force or fraud in the recruitment
process, reports indicate that some of them are placed in harsh conditions, it
said.
Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia,
Angola, Mongolia, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq and China are believed to be hiring North
Korean workers under contract with Pyongyang, according to the report.
North Korea does not recognize trafficking victims and makes no protection or
assistance efforts, it said, and the government actually contributes to the
problem through the operation of labor prison camps where thousands of people
live in "slave-like conditions." South Korea was cited as a primary source
country for the trafficking of women internally and to the US, Japan, Hong
Kong, Guam, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Western Europe. Women from
Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China, the Philippines, Thailand and other
southeastern Asian countries are trafficked to South Korea, said the report.
South Korean men are a "significant source of demand" for child sex tourism in
Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, the report pointed out, and while there
are laws in place allowing their prosecution, there typically are no legal
actions taken against them.
Seoul has increased cooperation with Washington against the sex trafficking of
South Korean women to the US, but it fell comparatively short in regulating
labor trafficking of foreigners, the report said.
"The South Korean government should take steps to ensure that the new
employment placement system of labor recruitment offers greater protection to
foreign workers by investigating and prosecuting cases of forced labor among
migrant workers," it said.
The report carried a photograph of a South Korean roadside billboard
advertising an "international marriage specialist" promising Vietnamese brides
who will not run away. The ad shows that women from less developed East Asian
nations are presented as commodities, a practice also common in Taiwan, Japan
and Malaysia, it said.
The number of international marriages tripled in South Korea in the last five
years, most of the brides from Southeast Asia and Mongolia, the report said.
"While South Korea has set up a program of action to assist foreign brides, there have been fewer actions thus far to curtail or better regulate the activities of exploitative South Korean marriage brokers," it said.
