North Korea on Thursday denounced a U.S. report on human trafficking that put Pyongyang in the lowest tier group, claiming that Washington is politicizing the issue of human rights as a means of intervening in other countries’ internal affairs.

Earlier this week, the State Department released the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, where North Korea was listed in the Tier 3 group, along with China, Russia, Iran and others. The U.S. put North Korea in the group for the 22nd straight year.

“It is one of U.S. slanderous documents on human rights that centered on its accusations of independent sovereign countries,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. “The report is nothing but the document listing countries that do not sympathize with U.S. values in a bid to realize its political purposes.”

North Korea took issue with the report that said the North’s dispatch of its workers abroad has involved forced labor, insisting that Washington has made an absurd claim over “normal” personnel movements between the
North and its neighboring countries.

“We will never tolerate provocative acts by the U.S. as it has been politicizing and weaponizing the human rights issue as the tool of violating a country’s sovereignty and intervening in its internal affairs,” the KCNA said.

North Korea has long bristled at the international community’s criticism of its human rights abuses, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

Source: Yonhap News Agency