North Korea documentary Cash for Kim shows labourers worked to death in Poland

SHOCKING investigation reveals how North Korean labourers are being worked to death as their wages go directly into the hands of the government.

LABOURERS are literally being worked to death in shocking conditions with money flowing directly into the hands of the North Korean government.

A revealing Vice investigation shows not only are North workers being used as forced labour in Europe, but their wages are flowing into the pockets of the DPRK regime.

Filmmakers Sebastian Weis and Manuel Freundt have uncovered shocking evidence that goes right to the heart of the European Union with their footage revealing the harrowing conditions the labourers work under.

The Vice documentary reveals appalling conditions the North Korean workers face. Picture: Screengrab

The documentary, Cash for Kim, shows who is benefiting from the working conditions while giving an insight into how the North Korean workers are treated, with many kept under watch and fearful of reporting their conditions.

Vice also gained exclusive access to documents that reveal the wages of labourers working in poland before Kim’s regimen received any of it.

Other confidential documents including service contracts, payment records, registers of persons, passport copies and excerpts from a population register smuggled out of North Korea were also obtained.

One of the shipyards allegedly involved using North Korean workers. Picture: Courtesy of Vice.com

The footage also shows how workers were employed in several locations across Poland.

More alarmingly the Cash for Kim documentary sheds light on the possibility that one Polish company is even being run by a high-ranking member of the North Korean military.

While North Korea is under trading sanctions and isolated from the rest of the globe, Cash for Kim explores how complex the web of organised exploitation is and how this is further fuelled by bureaucratic chaos, official indifference and political ignorance.

Weir and Freundt also question if the workers are in Poland due to a bureaucratic system error, or rather an economic policy that turns a blind eye to the issue.

The investigation was sparked after a North Korean worker died at a major shipyard in the Gdansk region, with the victim receiving 95 per cent burns to his body which Vice claimed was only possible due to inadequate working equipment and unsafe practices.

Filmmaker Sebastian Weis uncovered a stash of revealing documents about North Korean labour in Poland. Picture: Courtesy of Vice.com

An official accident report by the Polish National Labor Inspectorate (PIP) found at least 14 different companies using North Korean labour.

Workers who were contacted by Vice told how they were working 12-hour days and some had no clue what they were even earning.

The issue of forced labour was also highlighted in a report by human rights group Amnesty International.

Amnesty International’s 2015-16 annual report revealed the government arranged for more than 50,000 people to work in other countries.

The human rights group also expressed concern that government authorities were collecting their wages directly from employers and keeping a significant portion for its own revenue.

Last year, the United Nations revealed workers were being sent overseas to circumvent sanctions and earned up to $2.3b for the country.

The special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea Marzuki Darusman told the UN general assembly that the workers are being used as a new source of income, with North Korea facing a “really tight financial and economic situation”, The Guardian reported.

The workers are employed in mining, logging, textile and construction and working in countries including China, Russia, the UAE, Cambodia and Poland.

The documentary claims a top military official is running a Polish company.