Abuse of North Korean women

Earlier this year, a major new report exposed one particularly under-reported human rights issue — the abuse of North Korean women and their trafficking into prostitution, cybersex and forced marriage in China on a vast scale. The report, by Korea Future Initiative and titled “Sex Slaves,” describes a catalogue of “systematic rape, sex trafficking, sexual slavery, sexual abuse, prostitution, cybersex trafficking, forced marriage and forced pregnancy.” North Korean woman are forced into China’s sex trade “where they are exploited and used by men until their bodies are depleted.”

China’s criminal underworld, according to this new report, makes annual profits of at least US$105 million from the exploitation of North Korean women. Victims are prostituted for as little as US$4, sold as wives for US$146 and trafficked into “cybersex dens for exploitation by a global audience.” Girls as young as 9 years old are forced to perform graphic sex acts and are sexually assaulted in front of webcams livestreamed to a worldwide audience.

Some of China’s police officers are also complicit, sometimes carrying out direct sales of North Korean women and girls themselves.

But it is not only women who are abused. North Korean men and boys are trafficked into forced labor on farms and construction sites in China and threatened with violence, according to Korea Future Initiative’s report.

Those who are not exploited in China are forcibly repatriated by China, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian norms and the principle of non-refoulement. A recent case of a family of seven from North Korea, including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old, has drawn attention. A relative of the family has issued an appeal for help, and Justice for North Korea, a Seoul-based NGO, has said that “international organizations and the international community are the only way to save the lives of these seven at risk.”

Under North Korean laws, departing the country without permission is a criminal offense. North Koreans who have previously been forcibly repatriated have faced imprisonment in political prison camps or other detention facilities, or in some cases execution. Ji Hyeon-A, for example, escaped from North Korea three times and each time was arrested in China and sent back to face severe torture.

She had become pregnant in China, and when forcibly repatriated to North Korea she was forced to abort her baby. Only on her fourth attempt did she make it to South Korea. The fact that she kept trying, despite the dangers and the trauma of torture, is an indication of how desperate the situation is.

Ji Hyeon-A fled North Korea because of her Christian faith. In North Korea there is no religious freedom — full stop. As CSW’s most recent report found, while there may have been some other changes in North Korea, the one area where there’s absolutely no change is in the basic right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. Any divergence from utter loyalty to the Kim dynasty is punished severely.

One interviewee told us that a person found to be a Christian “would be immediately shot.” Another said that when it comes to religion, North Koreans “just shudder because punishment is very severe.”

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry concurs, noting that “there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association.” The regime “considers the spread of Christianity a particularly severe threat” and, as a result, “Christians are prohibited from practicing their religion and are persecuted.” Severe punishments are inflicted on “people caught practicing Christianity.”

In his speech at the Berlin Wall 32 years ago, President Reagan noted that “there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds … Freedom is the victor … Freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.”

Germany’s President Richard von Weizsacker said that the divide represented by the Berlin Wall affected “the question of freedom for all mankind.” The same is true of the division on the Korean Peninsula. That division is not one marked only by the question of nuclear capability but also by human dignity and freedom.

Justice Michael Kirby, who chaired the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, said in an article last year that “I am glad that President Trump and Chairman Kim met in Singapore … But I cannot put out of my mind the people who came to the public hearings of the United Nations inquiry. They told their stories of suffering. They trust the world and the United Nations to right the wrongs. Their testimony is on the internet.

It haunts our world. But not North Korea where it is inaccessible to all but the elite around Kim. I will begin to respect his word when he opens up his isolated country to allow United Nations inspectors to visit the mass detention camps. Let him do this immediately and then I can join in the rejoicing for the self-proclaimed triumph of the Singapore summit of June 2018.”

A year on from the Singapore summit, there is no cause for rejoicing whatsoever. Let us hope that talks resume, that bridges are built and that with human dignity the Korean Peninsula, north and south, will pursue a new world.

Benedict Rogers is East Asia team leader at human rights organization CSW and co-founder of the International Coalition to End Crimes against Humanity in North Korea.