Evolving North Korean rights abuses – state-sponsored human trafficking
The body of a North Korean soldier killed in Russia’s Kursk Oblast (Image: Ukrainian Armed Forces’ SOF / Telegram)
Young North Korean men sent to fight Russia’s war in Ukraine are caught up in a new kind of modern-day slavery.
They have no idea where they are, who they’re fighting against, or why. Their lives are simply a means for the Kim Jong-un regime to make money, while their parents are forced to endure the unbearable pain of losing their sons. This is a new and unacceptable form of human trafficking in our modern world.
That was my testimony at a UN human rights meeting in New York in May.
I argued that the issue of human rights in North Korea has long been a source of concern for the international community. Amid hunger, political prison camps, suppression of freedom of expression, movement, and religion, countless people risked their lives to escape. Yet defectors often became victims of labor exploitation, forced marriage, and human trafficking in China, and even now live under constant fear of forced repatriation.
Tragically, more than 30 years after the North Korean human rights issue began receiving global attention, it has now evolved into an even more severe and systemic problem.
In the past, abuses largely took place inside the country, while trafficking of defectors was carried out by individual criminals. But today, state power itself is driving international human trafficking. Since late 2024, the regime has commodified its citizens’ lives, shamelessly committing human trafficking crimes by selling them off to battlefields as if they were mere goods.
These soldiers are no longer defenders of their own homeland. Against their will, they are forced into another country’s war, reduced to cannon fodder and stripped of their basic rights. In exchange, the regime receives economic and military aid from Russia.
According to multiple media reports, from late last year to early this year, at least 12,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to Russia, and within just a few months thousands became casualties.
The regime receives about $2,000 per soldier per month. If a soldier is killed, it receives additional compensation in the form of a “condolence payment.” This money, of course, never goes to the families. Even basic funerals are denied, and soldiers cannot even die under their own names. Forged IDs found on the bodies of fallen North Korean troops in Ukraine carried fake Russian names.
The burning youth of these conscripted soldiers is recorded only as cold numbers in the regime’s hard-currency ledgers. This pricing of human life itself and its sale on international battlefields represents the most harrowing reality of North Korean human rights today.
It is heartbreaking to note that young men are harming themselves to avoid deployment. Previously, a small number of conscripts would cut off the index finger of their right hand to escape military service, where malnutrition, beatings, and forced labor were routine. But after deployment to Russia began, the criteria for exemption changed to only be granted if both index fingers were missing. As a result, reports say the number of young men cutting off both fingers has surged. This despairing reality of being driven to mutilate oneself to escape state-sponsored abuse is horrific beyond words.
Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war goes beyond human rights violations. It constitutes a grave threat to international peace and security. By dispatching troops, the regime is committing crimes under international law: the crimes of aggression, violation of neutrality, state responsibility, and collusion in invasion.
These acts are prohibited under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions, the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is not mere diplomatic support. It is an outright international crime. By selling the lives of innocent young men, the regime is helping prolong the war, leading to greater civilian casualties. Even the recent U.S.-Russia summit failed to produce an agreement to end the war. The sacrifices of North Korea’s youth, and the insecurity threatening global peace, will likely continue.
The international community can no longer afford a lukewarm response. The troop deployments are not simply a domestic issue. They are state-sponsored, organized human trafficking and acts of aggression. Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin was referred to the International Criminal Court in 2023 as a war criminal, Kim Jong-un and the North Korean leadership must also be held accountable. This is not only for the sake of the North Korean people but is the minimum step necessary to protect international peace and universal human values.
Kim’s regime will strike deals with any tyrant if it means survival and money. In such circumstances, the silence of the international community amounts to complicity, and the cost will ultimately be borne by the entire world. What is urgently needed now is firm and united action from the global community.
Eun-ju is a North Korean defector and the author of "A Thousand Miles to Freedom." She currently works as a social cooperation officer and researcher at the EUM Research Institute, contributing regularly to research on North Korea and defectors. Eun-ju holds a master’s degree in sociology from Korea University.
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