A labor camp (or labour, see spelling differences) or work camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment under the criminal code. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especially prison farms). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators.
In the 20th century, a new category of labor camps developed for the imprisonment of virtual millions of people who were not criminals per se, but political opponents (real or imagined) and various so-called undesirables under the totalitarian, both communist and fascist regimes. Some of those camps were dubbed "reeducation facilities" for political coercion, but most others served as backbone of industry and agriculture for the benefit of the state especially in times of war. Labor camps of forced labor were abolished by Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957.
AlbaniaAllied ForcesThe
Allies of World War II operated a number of work camps after the war. At the
Yalta Conference in 1945, it was agreed that
German forced labor was to be utilized as reparations. The majority of the camps were in the
Soviet Union, but more than 1,000,000 Germans were forced to work in French coal-mines and British agriculture, as well as 500,000 in U.S.-run Military Labor Service Units in occupied Germany itself. See
Forced labor of Germans after World War II.
BulgariaBurmaAccording to the
New Statesman, Burmese military government operated, from 1962 to 2011, about 91 labour camps for
political prisoners.
ChinaThe anti-communist
Kuomintang operated various camps between 1938 and 1949, including the
Northwestern Youth Labor Camp for young activists and students.The Communist Party of China has operated many labor camps for some crimes at least since taking power in 1949. Many leaders of China were put into labor camps after purges, including
Deng Xiaoping and
Liu Shaoqi. May Seventh Cadre Schools are an example of
Cultural Revolution-era labor camps. According to CNN, hundreds — if not thousands — of labor camps and forced-labor prisons (laogai) still exist in modern-day China, housing
political prisoners and dissidents alongside dangerous criminals.Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported in early 2013 that the country plans to reform its "controversial re-education through labor system this year."
CubaBeginning in November 1965, people classified as "against the government" were summoned to work camps referred to as "
Military Units to Aid Production" (UMAP).
CzechoslovakiaAfter the communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, many forced labor camps were created. The inmates included political prisoners,
clergy, kulaks, Boy Scouts leaders and many other groups of people that were considered enemies of the state. About half of the prisoners worked in the
uranium mines. These camps lasted until 1961.Also between 1950 and 1954 many men were considered "politically unreliable" for compulsory military service, and were conscripted to labour battalions (Czech:
Pomocné technické prapory (PTP)) instead.
Italian LibyaDuring the colonisation of Libya the Italians deported most of the Libyan population in
Cyrenaica to
concentration camps and used the survivors to build in semi-slave conditions the coastal road and new agricultural projects.
Nazi GermanyDuring
World War II the Nazis operated several categories of
Arbeitslager (Labor Camps) for different categories of inmates. The largest number of them held Jewish civilians forcibly abducted in the occupied countries (see Łapanka) to provide labor in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges or work on farms. By 1944, 19.9% of all workers were foreigners, either civilians or prisoners of war.The Nazis employed many slave laborers. They also operated concentration camps, some of which provided free forced labor for industrial and other jobs while others existed purely for the extermination of their inmates. A notable example is the Mittelbau-Dora labor camp complex that serviced the production of the
V-2 rocket. See List of German concentration camps for more.The Nazi camps played a key role in
the extermination of millions.
JapanDuring the early 20th century, the
Empire of Japan used the forced labor of millions of civilians from conquered countries and prisoners of war, especially during the
Second Sino-Japanese War and the
Pacific War, on projects such as the Death Railway. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a direct result of the overwork, malnutrition, preventable disease and violence which were commonplace on these projects.
North KoreaNorth Korea is known to operate six camps with prison-labor colonies in remote mountain valleys. The total number of prisoners in the Kwan-li-so is 150,000 – 200,000. Once condemned as a political criminal in North Korea, the defendant and his family are incarcerated for lifetime in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact.
Communist RomaniaRussia and Soviet UnionImperial Russia operated a system of remote
Siberian forced labor camps as part of its regular judicial system, called
katorga.The
Soviet Union took over the already extensive katorga system and expanded it immensely, eventually organizing the
Gulag to run the camps. In 1954, a year after Stalin's death, the new Soviet government of
Nikita Khrushchev began to release political prisoners and close down the camps. By the end of the 1950s, virtually all "corrective labor camps" were reorganized, mostly into the system of
corrective labor colonies. Officially, the
Gulag was terminated by the MVD order 20 of January 25, 1960.During the period of
Stalinism, the Gulag labor camps in the Soviet Union were officially called "Corrective labor camps." The term "labor colony"; more exactly, "Corrective labor colony", (
Russian:
исправительно-трудовая колония, abbr.
ИТК), was also in use, most notably the ones for underaged (16 years or younger) convicts and captured
besprizorniki (
street children, literally, "children without family care"). After the reformation of the camps into the Gulag, the term "corrective labor colony" essentially encompassed labor camps.
Sweden14 labor camps were operated by the Swedish state during World War II. The majority of internees were communists, but radical
social democrats, syndicalists, anarchists,
trade unionists,
anti-fascists and other "unreliable elements" of Swedish society, as well as German dissidents and deserters from the
Wehrmacht, were also interned. The internees were placed in the labor camps indefinitely, without trial, and without being informed of the accusations made against them. Officially, the camps were called "labor companies" (Swedish:
arbetskompanier). The system was established by the Royal Board of Social Affairs and sanctioned by the third cabinet of
Per Albin Hansson, a
grand coalition which included all parties represented in the Swedish
Riksdag, with the notable exception of the Communist Party of Sweden.After the war, many former camp inmates had difficulty finding a job, since they had been branded as "subversive elements".
TurkeyUnited StatesIn 2005, The
United States Army declassified a document that "provides guidance on establishing prison camps on [US] Army installations."
VietnamYugoslaviaSocialist Yugoslavia ran the Goli otok prison camp for political opponents from 1946 to 1956.