They almost certainly don’t know it, but western owners of shiny new wigs and false eyelashes could owe their look to North Korean slave labour. In recent years, a booming trade in human hair has helped to sustain North Korea’s isolated economy, softening the impact of international sanctions and providing Pyongyang with vital revenue to pursue its nuclear ambitions. Last year, exports to China included 1,680 tonnes – or about 135 double decker buses worth – of false eyelashes, beards and wigs worth around $167m, according to Chinese customs data.
Millions of dollars in sales of human hair helped drive a recovery in the secretive state’s exports in 2023, with wigs and other hair products making up almost 60% of declared goods sent to China, by far its biggest trading partner. Between hollow rhetoric and war: how sanctions work – and why they often don’t Read more The products are typically made with hair imported from China and assembled at low cost in the North, before being returned to Chinese businesses who export them all over the world. However, shoppers in London and Seoul perusing hairpieces and other accoutrements will find labels telling them the items were made in China, not North Korea.
Light industry of the kind that manufacture beauty products are not subject to UN sanctions against Pyongyang; instead, they are one of several ways – legal and otherwise – in which the regime is able to soften the blow from international punitive measures and earn.
