US Designates North Korea as Worst Human Trafficking Nation for 24th Consecutive Year

The Donald Trump administration has designated North Korea as the world's worst human trafficking nation for the 24th consecutive year.

In the 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report released on the 8th (local time), the U.S. Department of State placed North Korea in Tier 3, the lowest tier.

Since being designated to Tier 3 in the 2003 report, North Korea has remained in the lowest tier for 24 straight years up to this year's report.

The State Department pointed out that the North Korean government "showed no significant efforts to address human trafficking problems," noting the existence of government policies and patterns of human trafficking in subjecting not only adults but also children to forced labor in political prison camps and forced labor camps, as well as imposing forced labor conditions on workers dispatched overseas.

It further criticized that "North Korea used profits generated from state-sponsored forced labor to fund government operations."

The State Department stated that while between 80,000 and 200,000 people are imprisoned in political prison camps, the exact number of inmates in detention facilities including labor camps cannot be ascertained, and that inmates are subjected to unsanitary living conditions, beatings, torture, sexual exploitation including rape, and food shortages in addition to forced labor.

The department also evaluated that North Korea withholds up to 90 percent of wages from foreign workers to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in government revenue annually, and that North Korean women working in Chinese seafood processing plants, restaurants, and coffee shops are subjected to forced prostitution.

Additionally, the State Department noted that women defecting to China are vulnerable to human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and labor exploitation.

They are reportedly subjected to sexual exploitation and forced prostitution by human traffickers, and suffer from forced labor if forced into marriages with Chinese men.

It particularly pointed out that up to 30,000 children born between Chinese men and defected North Korean women are unregistered at birth, leaving them stateless.

In this year's report, 20 countries including North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Cuba, Hong Kong, Macau, and Venezuela were designated as Tier 3 nations.

The State Department has been publishing and submitting the annual trafficking report to Congress since 2001 under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

South Korea was classified as Tier 1, the highest tier, just like last year.

Explaining the reason for maintaining Tier 1, the State Department stated in the report that "the South Korean government fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. During the reporting period, the government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts."

However, the State Department pointed out a decrease in prosecutions of human trafficking offenders, and noted that the number of human trafficking cases related to prostitution and labor exploitation investigated by law enforcement agencies remains low compared to the reported scale of crimes.

It also pointed out that despite the existence of forced labor against migrant workers in sectors such as fisheries, related prosecutions and convictions are few, and that courts sentenced 80 percent of human trafficking offenders, including child exploiters, to less than a year in prison, fines, or probation.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.