UPDATE : December 14, 2016, Personal information on an unnamed North Korean defector, who gave testimony at the seminar, has been removed at the request of Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB)

Many of the around 50,000 North Korean workers in Russia cannot pay growing debts due to extortion from Pyongyang and difficult working conditions, South Korea’s Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) said on Monday.

With a selection procedure rooted in bribery and hinged on personal relationships with bureaucrats, workers are incurring personal debt before they even leave the North, Park Chan-hong, a senior assistant at