Hwang Hyun-uk

1 month ago | dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk

“I cut myself trimming frozen pollack. I was bleeding badly and it hurt a lot, but they just put a band-aid on it and I went back to work.”A North Korean worker at a seafood processing plant in Liaoning province, China, expressed her frustration when asked about working conditions. According to her, workers must pay for most medical treatment, so when they’re seriously injured, they quickly patch up their wounds and continue working.

2 months ago | dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk

North Korea’s cyber capabilities have evolved dramatically in recent years, progressing beyond simple hacking to encompass public opinion manipulation, military technology theft, and cryptocurrency mining. The country increasingly deploys IT workers in sophisticated “asymmetric operations” that face few geographic or temporal constraints and are difficult to trace. The regime recently established the “227 Research Center” under the Reconnaissance General Bureau of the Korean People’s Army.

Feb 13, 2025 | dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk

“Work harder, pay more, keep less” – this is the grinding reality for North Korean workers in Chinese factories, where a complex web of state quotas and mandatory contributions strips away their wages despite Pyongyang’s hollow promises of worker protection. In frigid seafood processing plants along China’s northeastern coast, women laborers watch their monthly earnings evaporate into an ever-growing list of state demands, leaving them barely enough to survive.

Nov 26, 2024 | dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk

North Korea’s Public Reporting System Law encourages overseas workers to report their colleagues’ illegal activities, but the system has proven ineffective due to inadequate informant protection and mishandling of reports. Based on Daily NK’s investigation of Chinese seafood processing plants, while direct phone lines connect factory reporting “boxes” to North Korean authorities like the embassy, workers are unable to safely use these reporting channels.

Nov 6, 2024 | dailynk.com | Lee Sang Yong |Hwang Hyun-uk

North Korea is strictly enforcing three recently enacted laws on its citizens working abroad: the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act, the Youth Education Guarantee Act, and the Pyongyang Dialect Protection Act. These regulations are severely restricting North Koreans’ freedoms both at home and abroad. An investigation into Chinese seafood factories has revealed that North Korean workers are completely cut off from outside information. According to a source who spoke to Daily NK on Oct.