The U.S. has designated North Korea as one of the world’s worst human trafficking offenders for the 23rd consecutive year, citing its widespread use of forced labor and its dispatch of workers overseas.

The DPRK is one of 13 countries categorized as a Tier 3 country, the lowest rank, in the State Department’s 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report published on Monday. 

“The government did not demonstrate any meaningful efforts to address human trafficking,” the report stated, accusing the regime of state-sponsored human trafficking, operating political prison camps and reeducation-through-labor camps and subjecting North Korean overseas workers to forced labor.