The official representative of Russian foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova
© Vyacheslav Prokofyev/TASS
MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. The official representative of Russian foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova called baseless and untrue allegations of a U.S. state Department report about alleged forced labour of North Korean citizens into “labor camps” in Russia.
“Allegations of forced labour of North Korean citizens in the so-called labor camps of the DPRK in Russia the report of the Secretary of state on the situation of human trafficking baseless,” she said Thursday at a briefing. The diplomat admitted that initially she “was even hard to believe” that such allegations really are contained in the report.
“There is no doubt that these materials are solely for the purpose to use the human rights tool to exert unilateral pressure on North Korea, damage to the bilateral relations of Russia and North Korea”, – said Zakharov. “Use migrant workers from North Korea is not contrary to the relevant resolutions and restrictions imposed by UN security Council resolutions, she added. – In terms of employment and stay of North Korean workers in our country correspond to Russian labor legislation.”
The official representative of Russian foreign Ministry drew attention that in the US there is also a practice to use labour from neighbouring countries.
“There really is no way things are no certificates of health, no checking (labour migrants). The new President is trying to deal with this situation. We wish him success”, – concluded the diplomat.
Published June 27, the annual U.S. state Department report on the problem of trafficking in persons contained accusations against the Russian government that it does not take appropriate measures to combat modern slavery. According to the authors of this report, the actions of “the government of Russia does not fully meet the” even “minimum standards” to combat human trafficking, and Moscow is “not making significant efforts” to change this. It argues that Russia “has recently stepped up bilateral contacts with the Democratic people’s Republic”, which last ran its “corrective labor camps on Russian soil, forcing thousands of North Korean workers to work.”