North Korea secretly sends thousands of unmarried women to China for labor, leaked documents reveal

North Korea is reportedly circumventing international sanctions by sending a significant number of laborers abroad to generate foreign currency. Leaked internal documents reveal that between 2024 and March 2026, North Korea secretly dispatched around 7,000 workers to the Tumen Economic Development Zone in China's Jilin Province. Notably, a striking 86% of these workers, exceeding 6,000 individuals, are unmarried women.

These laborers are primarily employed in factories involved in electronics assembly, garment manufacturing, aquatic product processing, and daily necessities production. Border trade sources suggest these industries rely heavily on the dexterity and meticulousness of female workers. North Korean authorities reportedly select young, unmarried women without family burdens, facilitating easier group management and deployment as cheap labor in Chinese factories.

The operation is allegedly orchestrated by North Korea's "Room 39," a covert agency tasked with managing the personal overseas funds of leader Kim Jong Un and other high-ranking party officials. A substantial portion of the wages earned by these overseas workers is reportedly confiscated and remitted to the state treasury, serving as a crucial source of foreign exchange for the regime's operations.

Data indicates a rapid increase in the number of dispatched laborers, surging from 1,500 to over 4,000 within a single year. This large-scale deployment of North Korean workers in China appears to directly contravene UN Security Council Resolution 2397, adopted in 2017, which mandated the repatriation of all North Korean laborers by the end of 2019. The leaked documents suggest China has not only failed to enforce this resolution but has also significantly increased the entry of North Korean workers in recent years, openly disregarding UN sanctions.