A Tokyo court has asked Pyongyang to pay 88 million Japanese yen ($570,000; £416,000) to four people who were lured to North Korea decades ago by a propaganda scheme.
The plaintiffs said the North was marketed to them as “paradise on Earth”, but they instead found themselves subject to harsh conditions, including forced labour. They later escaped.
Monday’s ruling is largely symbolic with no real way to enforce it: North Korea has for years ignored the lawsuit, and its leader Kim Jong Un has not responded to Japanese court summons.
But the ruling, which comes after a years-long legal battle in Japanese courts, has been hailed by the plaintiffs’ lawyer as “historic”.
This was the first time “a Japanese court exercised its sovereignty against North Korea to recognise its malpractice”, said Atsushi Shiraki, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, AFP reported.
More than 90,000 Zainichi Koreans – ethnic Koreans who live in Japan – moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984, under a resettlement scheme which promised an idyllic life of free healthcare, education and jobs.
But instead survivors say they found themselves forced to work on farms and factories, subject to restrictions and could not leave.
One of the plaintiffs, Eiko Kawasaki, went to North Korea in 1960, when she was 17. She escaped in 2003 and is now 83 years old.
She was among a group of five plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in 2018 demanding compensation. Two of the original plaintiffs have since died, but one of them continued to be represented in the lawsuit by their family.
Credit: bbc.com
