page_title: Labor camp
section_title: Labor camps in the 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Labor camp / Labor camps in the 20th century
context_page_description: A labor camp or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons. Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization, adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, abolished camps of forced labor.
  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 and various so-called undesirables under communist and fascist regimes, both totalitarian. Some of those camps were dubbed "reeducation facilities" for political coercion, but most others served as backbones of industry and agriculture for the benefit of the state, especially in times of war.
context_section_description: 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 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. See Forced labor of Germans after World War II.
  Communist Bulgaria
  Burma
  According to the New Statesman, Burmese military government operated, from 1962 to 2011, about 91 labour camps for political prisoners.
  China
  The 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.
  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.
  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).
  Communist Czechoslovakia
  After the communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, many forced labor camps were created. The inmates included political prisoners, clergy, kulaks, Boy Scout 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 Libya
  During 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 Germany
  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.
  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.
  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 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 Korea
  North 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 to 200,000. Once condemned as a political criminal in North Korea, the defendant and his family are incarcerated for life in 
caption: 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
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