Investigations into North Korean human rights abuses have documented the use of an extensive system of prison camps to detain those deemed a threat to the regime, verifying these facilities through both defector testimony and satellite imagery.

But while these reports have naturally focused on ongoing abuses and the condition of the prisons, the DPRK’s network of prison and labor camps goes far beyond just the facilities that are currently in operation.

North Korea has used such camps to punish people since the establishment of the state itself in 1948 — with at least 17 labor camps