By Kang Hyun-kyung
KUWAIT CITY ― Nearly 10 or so North Korean workers in Kuwait are annually ordered to leave the country for violating the local law prohibiting the drinking or brewing alcohol.
Deportations of North Koreans are ironically becoming a headache for the South Korean Embassy based here as local media failed to make it clear that the violators are from the North.
A diplomat from the Korean Embassy in Kuwait said Tuesday that every year there is local media report on North Koreans deported for having secretly brewed alcohol.
“Journalists didn't clarify they are North Koreans and simply call them Koreans. This is troubling for us because such media coverage could mislead local people to believe that South Koreans are also involved in the illegal activities here,” the official said asking for anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“Whenever we see such media coverage, we always ask journalists to correct their article to read that they are North Koreans, not South Koreans. This is part of our job here.”
Kuwait is one of the popular destinations for North Korean workers. Nearly 4,500 North Koreans are currently working in the country mostly as laborers. The number of North Korean workers all across the Gulf region is approximately 8,000, showing that more than half of them are based in Kuwait.
The number of North Korean workers, meanwhile, is three times higher than that of South Korean nationals in Kuwait.
According to experts, North Korea has sent workers to the Gulf State for the past 15 years.
The vast majority of North Korean workers there are blue-collar workers and they are said to earn $200 to $300 per month.
The actual amount of money they get is much smaller as a significant portion of their salary goes directly to the North Korean regime. The impoverished North has strategically sent its workers to several foreign countries to earn hard currency.
These North Korean workers leave Kuwait after working four or five years there and new workers replace them.
The cash-strapped North reportedly wants to send more workers to the Middle Eastern country to increase remittances.
But this will likely turn out to be wishful thinking as the government of Kuwait last year announced it would halve the number of foreign workers over the next decade with a cut of 100,000 annually.
The announcement concerned countries such as North Korea which is heavily reliant on remittances sent by dispatched workers to foreign countries.