Editing Labor camp

{{Short description|Type of detention facility}}
{{distinguish|concentration camp}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2020}}
[[File:Canal Mer Blanche.jpg|thumb |263px |The [[White Sea–Baltic Canal]] opened on 2 August 1933 was the first major industrial project constructed in the [[Soviet Union]] using only [[forced labor]].]]
{{slavery}}

A '''labor camp''' (or '''labour camp''', see [[British and American spelling differences|spelling differences]]) or '''work camp''' is a detention facility where inmates are [[unfree labour|forced to engage]] in [[penal labor]] as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with [[slavery]] and with [[prison]]s (especially [[prison farm]]s). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations [[International Labour Organization]] (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, intended to abolish camps of forced labor.<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fSIMXHMdfkkC&q=LABOR+CAMPS.&pg=PA1248|title=Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M|publisher=Routledge - New York, London|date=1 January 2003|access-date=19 July 2024}}</ref>

In the 20th century, a new category of labor camps developed for the imprisonment of millions of people who were not criminals ''per se'', but political opponents (real or imagined) and various so-called undesirables under communist and fascist regimes.

== Precursors ==
[[File:Convict labourers in Australia in the early 20th century.jpg|thumb|350px|A painter's impression of a convict ploughing team breaking up new ground at a farm in [[Port Arthur, Tasmania]] in the early 20th century]]
Early-modern states could exploit convicts by combining prison and useful work in manning their [[galley]]s.<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Gibson
 | first1 = Mary
 | last2 = Poerio
 | first2 = Ilaria
 | chapter = Modern Europe, 1750–1950
 | editor1-last = Anderson
 | editor1-first = Clare
 | title = A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BoNeDwAAQBAJ
 | publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing
 | date = 2018
 | isbn = 978-1350000698
 | access-date = 2019-10-07
 | quote = A second early modern form of punishment, the galleys, constituted a more direct precedent to the earliest hard labour camps. [...] Galley rowing offered no promise of rehabilitation and, in fact, often led to disease and death. However, it shared with the prison workhouses of northern Europe a new aspiration to integrate hard labour into punishment for the eeconomic benefit of the state.
}}
</ref>
This became the sentence of many Christian captives in the [[Ottoman Empire]]<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Magocsi
 | first1 = Paul Robert
 | author-link1 = Paul Robert Magocsi
 | year = 1996
 | title = A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0mKRsElYNkC
 | edition = 2nd
 | location = Toronto
 | publisher = University of Toronto Press
 | publication-date = 2010
 | page = 185
 | isbn = 978-1442698796
 | access-date = 2019-10-07
 | quote = And what happened to the captives from Ukraine  [...]? The slaves functioned at all levels of Ottoman society [...]. At the lowest end of the social scale were galley slaves conscripted into the imperial naval fleet and field hands who labored on Ottoman landed estates.
}}
</ref>
and of Calvinists ([[Huguenots]]) in [[Ancien Régime|pre-Revolutionary France]].<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = van Ruymbeke
 | first1 = Bertrand
 | chapter = 'A Dominion of True Believers Not a Republic for Heretics': French Colonial Religious Policy and the Settlement of Early louisiana, 1699–1730
 | editor1-last = Bond
 | editor1-first = Bradley G.
 | title = French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_aWXrQd-u98C
 | location = Baton Rouge
 | publisher = Louisiana State University Press
 | date = 2005
 | page = 90
 | isbn = 978-0807130353
 | access-date = 2019-10-07
 | quote = Andre Zysberg's study shows that [...] nearly 1,500 Huguenots were sentenced to the galleys between 1680 and 1716 [...].
}}
</ref>

==20th century==

===Albania===
{{main |Forced labour camps in Communist Albania}}

===Allies of World War II===
: The [[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 [[Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union|Soviet Union]], but more than one million Germans were forced to work in French coal-mines and British agriculture, as well as 500,000 in US-run Military Labor Service Units in occupied Germany itself.<ref>John Dietrich, ''The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy'' (2002) {{ISBN|1-892941-90-2}}</ref> See [[Forced labor of Germans after World War II]].

===Bulgaria===
{{main |Forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria}}

===Burma===
:According to the ''[[New Statesman]]'', [[Burmese military junta|Burmese military government]] operated, from 1962 to 2011, about 91 labour camps for political prisoners.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/06/forced-labour-burma-work|title=Burma's forced labour|website=www.newstatesman.com|date=9 June 2008 }}</ref>

===China===
:The anti-communist [[Kuomintang]] operated various camps between 1938 and 1949, including the [[Northwestern Youth Labor Camp]] for young activists and students.<ref name="Mühlhahn 2009, 132-133">Mühlhahn, Klaus (2009). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=YXC2mmpfHgEC Criminal Justice in China: A History]''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press {{ISBN|978-0-674-03323-8}}. pp. 132–133.</ref>
:The [[Chinese Communist Party]] 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.

===Cuba===
: Beginning in November 1965, people classified as "against the government" were summoned to work camps referred to as "[[Military Units to Aid Production]]" (UMAP).<ref>[http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/jan03/20o1.htm "A book sheds light on a dark chapter in Cuban history"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091103192219/http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/jan03/20o1.htm |date=2009-11-03 }}, ''[[El Nuevo Herald]]'', January 19, 2003. {{in lang|es}}</ref>

===Czechoslovakia===
: After the [[Communist Party of Czechoslovakia|communists]] [[Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948|took over Czechoslovakia]] in 1948, many forced labor camps were created.{{Citation needed |date=March 2013}} The inmates included [[political prisoner]]s, [[clergy]], [[kulaks]], Boy Scout leaders and many other groups of people that were considered enemies of the state.{{Citation needed |date=March 2013}} About half of the prisoners worked in the [[uranium]] mines.<ref>{{cite web
 |last = Sivoš
 |first = Jerguš
 |title = Tábory Nucených Prací (TNP) v Československu
 |publisher = totalita.cz
 |url = http://www.totalita.cz/vez/vez_tnp.php
 |language = cs
 |access-date = 2013-03-12}}</ref> These camps lasted until 1961.{{Citation needed |date=March 2013}}
: Also between 1950 and 1954 many men were considered "politically unreliable" for [[conscription|compulsory military service]], and were conscripted to labour battalions (Czech: ''Pomocné technické prapory (PTP)'') instead.{{Citation needed |date=March 2013}}

===Communist Hungary===
:Following sentence, [[political prisoner]]s were imprisoned. To serve this purpose,  a large number of internment camps (e.g., in [[Kistarcsa]], [[Recsk]] ([[Recsk forced labor camp]]), [[Tiszalök]], [[Kazincbarcika]] and according to the latest research, in [[Bernátkút]] and [[Sajóbábony]]) were placed under the supervision of the [[State Protection Authority]]. <ref>[https://neb.hu/en/from-secret-interrogations-to-the-vatican-of-transit-prison From secret interrogations to the “Vatican” of transit prison]</ref> The most notorious of these  camps were in Recsk, Kistarcsa, Tiszalök and Kazincbarcika. <ref>[https://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/allando-kiallitas/basement/internment Internment]</ref>

===Italian Libya===
: During the colonisation of Libya the Italians deported most of the Libyan population in [[Cyrenaica]] to concentration camps and [[Italian concentration camps in Libya|used the survivors to build in semi-slave conditions the coastal road and new agricultural projects]].<ref>General History of Africa, Albert Adu Boahen, Unesco. International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa, p. 196, 1990</ref>

===Germany===
[[File:Gross Rosen 3.JPG|thumb|[[Gross-Rosen concentration camp|Gross-Rosen]]]]
: During [[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]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Herbert |first1=Ulrich |year=2000 |title=Forced Laborers in the Third Reich: An Overview (Part One) |journal=International Labor and Working-Class History |volume=58 |url=http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130509054212/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |archive-date=2013-05-09 |doi=10.1017/S0147547900003677 |s2cid=145344942 }} (offprint)</ref>
:The Nazis [[Forced labor in Germany during World War II|employed many slave laborers]]. They also operated [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]], some of which provided [[Forced labor in Nazi concentration camps|free forced labor for industrial and other jobs]] while others existed purely for the [[Nazi extermination camp|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.
[[File:Dachau Concentration Camp Perimeter Fence.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Dachau Concentration Camp Perimeter Fence]]
:The Nazi camps played a key role in [[The Holocaust|the extermination of millions]]. The phrase {{lang|de|[[Arbeit macht frei]]}} ("Work makes one free") has become a symbol of The Holocaust.

===Imperial Japan===
: During 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 [[Burma Railway|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. {{See also |Japanese war crimes}}

===North Korea===
:North Korea is known to operate six camps with prison-labor colonies for political criminals ([[Kwan-li-so]]). The total number of prisoners in these colonies  is 150,000 to 200,000. Once condemned as a political criminal in North Korea, the defendant and his/or her family are incarcerated for life in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact.<ref name="auto1">{{cite web |title=The Hidden Gulag – Part Two: Kwan-li-so Political Panel Labor Colonies |pages =25–82 |work=The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea |url= http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_HiddenGulag2_Web_5-18.pdf |access-date=September 20, 2012}}</ref>
::See also: [[Prisons in North Korea|North Korean prison system]]

===Romania===
{{main |Danube–Black Sea Canal#Creation of the camps |Great Brăila Island}}

===Russia and the Soviet Union===
{{main |Correctional labour camp|Gulag}}
: [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]] operated a system of remote [[Siberia]]n 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 colony|corrective labor colonies]]. Officially, the Gulag was terminated by the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]] order 20 of January 25, 1960.<ref name="memo">{{Cite web|url=http://old.memo.ru/history/nkvd/gulag/|title=Система исправительно-трудовых лагерей в СССР|website=old.memo.ru}}</ref>

: 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", ({{langx |ru|исправительно-трудовая колония}}, abbr. ''ИТК''), was also in use, most notably the ones for underaged (16 years or younger) convicts and captured ''[[besprizornik]]i'' ([[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.{{Citation needed |date=October 2010}}

====Russian Federation====
{{main|Corrective labor colony}}

===Sweden===
{{main |Internment camps in Sweden during World War II}}
: 14 labor camps were operated by the [[Sweden|Swedish state]] during [[World War II]]. The majority of internees were [[Communism|communists]], but radical [[Social democracy|social democrats]], [[Syndicalism|syndicalists]], [[Anarchism|anarchists]], [[trade union]]ists, [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascists]] and other "unreliable elements" of Swedish society, as well as [[Nazi Germany|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 [[Hansson III Cabinet|third cabinet]] of [[Per Albin Hansson]], a [[grand coalition]] which included all parties represented in the Swedish [[Riksdag]], with the notable exception of the [[Left Party (Sweden)|Communist Party of Sweden]].

: After the war, many former camp inmates had difficulty finding a job, since they had been branded as "subversive elements".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berglund |first1=Tobias |last2=Sennerteg |first2=Niclas |title=Svenska koncentrationsläger i Tredje rikets skugga |date=2008 |publisher=[[Natur & Kultur]] |location=Stockholm |isbn=978-9127026957}}</ref>

===Turkey===
{{main |Labour Battalions (Ottoman Empire) |The Twenty Classes |Varlık Vergisi}}

===United States===
:During the [[United States occupation of Haiti]], the [[United States Marine Corps]] and their [[Gendarmerie of Haiti]] subordinates enforced a [[corvée]] system upon Haitians.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Alcenat|first=Westenly|title=The Case for Haitian Reparations|url=https://jacobinmag.com/2017/01/haiti-reparations-france-slavery-colonialism-debt/|access-date=2021-02-20|website=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2007-07-13|title=U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34|url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwi/88275.htm|access-date=2021-02-24|website=[[United States Department of State]]|language=en}}</ref><ref name="UOH">Paul Farmer, ''The Uses of Haiti'' (Common Courage Press: 1994)</ref> The corvée resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Haitians, with [[Haitian Americans|Haitian American]] academic [[Michel-Rolph Trouillot]] estimating that about 5,500 Haitians died in labor camps.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|last=Belleau|first=Jean-Philippe|date=2016-01-25|title=Massacres perpetrated in the 20th Century in Haiti|url=https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/massacres-perpetrated-20th-century-haiti.html|access-date=2021-05-28|website=[[Sciences Po]]|language=en}}</ref> In addition, [[Roger Gaillard (historian)|Roger Gaillard]] writes that some Haitians were killed fleeing the camps or if they did not work satisfactorily.<ref name=":62">{{Cite web|last=Belleau|first=Jean-Philippe|date=2016-01-25|title=Massacres perpetrated in the 20th Century in Haiti|url=https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/massacres-perpetrated-20th-century-haiti.html|access-date=2021-05-28|website=[[Sciences Po]]|language=en}}</ref>

===Vietnam===
{{main|Re-education camp (Vietnam)}}

===Yugoslavia===
: The [[Goli Otok]]prison camp for political opponents ran from 1946 to 1956.

==21st century==
===China===
{{Further|Re-education through labor|Xinjiang internment camps}}
: The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, which closed on December 28, 2013, passed a decision on abolishing the legal provisions on [[reeducation through labor]]. However, penal labor allegedly continues to exist in Xinjiang internment camps.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Finley |first=Joanne Smith |date=2022-09-01 |title=Tabula rasa: Han settler colonialism and frontier genocide in "re-educated" Xinjiang |journal=[[HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory]] |language=en |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=341–356 |doi=10.1086/720902 |issn=2575-1433 |s2cid=253268699 |doi-access=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clarke |first=Michael |date=2021-02-16 |title=Settler Colonialism and the Path toward Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang |journal=Global Responsibility to Protect |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=9–19 |doi=10.1163/1875-984X-13010002 |issn=1875-9858 |s2cid=233974395}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Byler |first=Darren |title=Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City |date=2021-12-10 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-1-4780-2226-8 |language=en |doi=10.1215/9781478022268 |jstor=j.ctv21zp29g |s2cid=243466208}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Byler |first=Darren |title=In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony |date=2021 |publisher=Columbia Global Reports |isbn=978-1-7359136-2-9 |jstor=j.ctv2dzzqqm}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/zenz-11122019161147.html|title=Expert Estimates China Has More Than 1,000 Internment Camps For Xinjiang Uyghurs|last=Lipes|first=Joshua|date=November 12, 2019|work=[[Radio Free Asia]]|access-date=November 13, 2019}}</ref>
===North Korea===
{{See also|Prisons in North Korea}}
: North Korea is known to operate six camps with prison-labor colonies for political criminals ([[Kwan-li-so]]). The total number of prisoners in these colonies is 150,000 – 200,000. Once condemned as a political criminal in North Korea, the defendant and their families are incarcerated for lifetime in one of the camps without trial, and are cut off from all outside contact.<ref name="auto1"/>
===United States===
{{See also|Penal labor in the United States}}
:In 1997, a [[United States Army]] document was developed that "provides guidance on establishing prison camps on [US] Army installations."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf |title=US Army Civilian Inmate Labor Program |publisher=Army.mil |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030403135807/http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf |archive-date=2003-04-03 }}</ref>
==See also==
* [[Chain gang]]
* [[Civilian Inmate Labor Program]]
* [[Extermination through labor]]
* [[Penal colony]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Communist labour camps}}
* {{Commons category-inline|Concentration camps}}

{{Incarceration}}
{{Segregation by type}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Penal labour|camps]]
[[Category:Prison camps]]
[[Category:Total institutions]]