China officially denies these workers are in the country, but their presence is an open secret. An investigation reveals 15 seafood processing plants have used over 1,000 North Korean workers since 2017.

By Ian Urbina | Special to The Globe and Mail

Excerpt

A team of researchers with the Outlaw Ocean Project, a non-profit journalism organization based in Washington, set out to document the use of North Korean workers in Chinese seafood plants that supply major brands in Canada and the United States. They reviewed leaked government documents, promotional materials, satellite imagery, online forums and local news reports. The researchers watched hundreds of cellphone videos published on Douyin, Bilibili (another video-sharing site) and WeChat (a popular Chinese messaging platform).

Reporting in China is distinctly difficult for Western reporters, but the group sent Chinese investigators to visit factories, talk to managers and take videos of production lines. The Outlaw Ocean Project also secretly sent interview questions, through intermediaries, to 20 North Korean workers and four managers, asking about their time in Chinese factories.

In all, the investigation identified 15 seafood processing plants that together have used more than 1,000 North Korean workers since 2017. China officially denies that these workers are in the country. But their presence is an open secret. “They are easy to distinguish,” one Dandong native wrote in a comment on Bilibili. “They all wear uniform clothes, have a leader, and follow orders.”

Although much of the seafood processed at the Chinese plants ended up in the U.S. and Canada, this has largely been hidden from consumers. Because of the opaqueness of international seafood supply chains and the unreliability of third-party auditing services that claim to investigate labour conditions at processing plants, it is often impossible for buyers to know who handled their fish.

The North Korean workers, most of whom are women, described a broad pattern of captivity and violence at the plants. They are held in compounds behind barbed wire, under the watch of security agents. Several described being slapped and punched by managers for not working hard enough or not following orders. They described being subjected to severe punishment if they tried to escape.

“It’s often emphasized that if you are caught running away, you will be killed without a trace,” a worker said.

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