An advisory committee on the promotion of human rights in North Korea, which operates under South Korea's unification ministry, raised concerns over the systematic exploitation of children inside the regime, urging the North to abide by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At the year's second session on Tuesday, the North Korean Human Rights Promotion Committee said that though the regime claims to ban child labor, aside from productive physical activities in its academic curriculum, students are mobilized for other after-school labor activities or personal orders from teachers.

Committee members who spent their childhood in the North gave testimonies of such forced labor, such as gleaning and catching grasshoppers by individual or classroom quota, which would at times last more than five hours in the afternoon.

One of the members said children with parents who had a higher status or who handed out bribes were exempt from this forced labor.

Noting that the biggest problem of North Korea's exploitation of children for labor is that the regime orchestrates such abuse, the ministry pledged to cooperate with the international community on the enforcement of practical steps to improve children's rights in the North.