Plaintiffs in case say they were lured from Japan, exploited for labour and cut off from families for generations
I
t has been more than six decades since Eiko Kawasaki left Japan to begin a new life in North Korea. Then 17, she was among tens of thousands of people with Korean heritage who had been lured to the communist state by the promise of a “paradise on Earth”.
Instead, they encountered something closer to a living hell. They were denied basic human rights and forced to endure extreme hardship. Official promises of free education and healthcare plus guaranteed jobs and housing had been a cruel mirage. And to their horror, they were prevented from travelling to Japan to visit the families they had left behind.
But this week, after years of campaigning, four settlers who had escaped to Japan secured justice of sorts, when a court in Tokyo ordered the North Korean government to pay each of them at least 20m yen (£94,000) in compensation.
