An infrared photograph shows two naked people crossing the Tumen River in the dark -- one is a human trafficker and the other a North Korean woman.
From Chosunilbo:
A 26-year-old North Korean woman, Mun Yun-hee crossed the Duman or Tumen River into China in the dawn of Oct. 22 last year, which at that point was some 40 m wide, guided by a human trafficker.
She was being sold to a single middle-aged Chinese farmer into a kind of indentured servitude-cum-companionship. Both of them wore only panties, having stored their trousers and shoes in bags, because if you are found wearing wet clothes across the river deep at night, it is a dead giveaway that you are a North Korean refugee.
Mun was led to a hideout, and the agent left. Asked why she crossed the river, she replied, "My father starved to death late in the 1990s, and my mother is blind from hunger." Her family owed 300 kg of corns, beans and rice and sold herself for the sake of her blind mother and a younger brother.
The middleman paid her 350 yuan, or W46,000 (US$1=W939), equivalent to half of the grain debt. A Chosun Ilbo news team became the first in the world to see the scale of human trafficking in the China-North Korea border. The exodus in the famines of the latter half of the 1990s has degraded into blatant human trafficking.
In the 10 months since May, 2007, the team witnessed the lives of North Korean refugees in five countries: China, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and Britain. In China, the refugees live day and night in fear of deportation to the North and poverty.
"I was first sold to a 34-year-old Chinese man in Shandong Province. Six months later, public security officers arrested me one day at midnight. Asked how, they said on a notification by a neighbor," Mun said. She was immediately sent to Dandong prison, from where a group of North Korean detainees were deported to Shinuiju chained two and two. There, she was thrown into a North Korean State Safety and Security Agency camp for a month.
"They took a quantity of blood to check possible venereal disease. Undressing the women, they checked even inside the sexual organs with gloved hands,” Mun recalled. If you repeat sit-and-stand 20 times, you vomit up everything you have eaten. Male inmates are forced to strike their heads against the steel door and beaten with clubs when they resist. Pregnant inmates were forced to miscarry on the grounds they were bearing Chinese children.
“The meals of corns with one side dish served were so poor that we longed for the meals we were given by the Chinese prison." Transferred to an escapees camp in Chongjin, North Hamgyeong Province, she was released after a stint of hard labor in 17-hour shifts.
Several months later, now 25, she again entrusted her body to a trafficker. An officer from the Durihana Mission, an organization assisting North Korean refugees, asked her, "We won't sell you to a Chinese. Will you go to South Korea?" Without hesitation, she replied, "I'll go back to the Chinese man who bought me first. I want to live with him, eating plenty and earning money, and send money to my family at home."
For the benefit of her blind old mother and younger brother, she opted to stay in China, risking another deportation. The Durihana Mission officer, failing to persuade her into going to the South, bid her farewell after buying her a few pieces of winter clothes.
Read the full article
Mark P. Lagon, Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsFrom the U.S. Department of State:
March 3, 2008- I would like to begin by thanking the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for hosting this morning’s discussion and also thank Bob Hathaway, a former colleague on the Hill, for the kind introduction and for putting together this forum on a very important issue: the exploitation and trafficking of North Koreans, specifically women and girls.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a source country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor, and for the fifth consecutive year has been placed in Tier 3, the lowest tier, in our annual Trafficking in Persons Report because it is making no discernible efforts to combat the trafficking of its citizens.
It has been well-documented, and publicized, that the dire conditions in North Korea include a severe shortage of food , a lack of basic freedoms, and a system of political repression which includes a network of government-operated prison camps, where as many as 200,000 prisoners are subjected to reeducation and slave-like conditions. The circumstances in the DPRK lead many North Koreans to seek a way out across the border into Northeast China where tens of thousands of North Koreans may reside illegally, of whom it is estimated that more than half are women.
Commonly, North Korean women and children voluntarily cross the border into China, but some of these individuals, after they enter the P.R.C. in a vulnerable, undocumented status, are then sold into prostitution, marriage, or forced labor. The trend of North Korean women trafficked into and within China for forced marriage is well-documented by NGOs and international organizations. Sometimes North Korean women are lured out of North Korea with the promise of a “better life” as waitresses or factory workers, and then are forced into prostitution in brothels, or exploitative labor arrangements.
A potential factor, among others, in the trafficking of brides is the gender imbalance caused by China’s one-child policy. There is, in short, a demographic man surplus relative to marriageable women. All agree that the two governments are not doing enough to prevent or punish the practice of forced marriage. NGOs and international organizations find it difficult to work independently in the PRC, so little assistance reaches this vulnerable group of DPRK women who have crossed into China.
North Koreans crossing the border are extremely vulnerable to trafficking given their illegal status in China and their inability to return home. A core principle of an effective anti-trafficking strategy is the protection of victims. The United Nations Protocol on Trafficking in Persons calls on governments to protect foreign victims of trafficking, including legal alternatives to deportation to countries where they face hardship or retribution. Greater government efforts need to be made to protect this highly vulnerable group of victims.
Unfortunately, China classifies North Korean refugees as “economic migrants” and forcibly returns some to the DPRK where they may face severe punishment, including in some cases execution. The PRC stands by this policy; however, the U.S. consistently urges China to treat North Korean asylum seekers in line with international agreements to which it is a signatory. China’s poor transparency and the political sensitivity of the issue hamper our efforts to effectively advocate for change on this issue.
Some steps to address the problem are being taken in China. The International Labor Organization (ILO) recently began a new project to work closely with the China Enterprise Confederation to educate entrepreneurs, owners, and managers of various enterprises that in the past have been linked to trafficking, such as hotels, karaoke bars, restaurants, bars, and massage parlors. The All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) and non-governmental organizations have a number of ongoing prevention and education projects in affected provinces. In the past five years, with assistance from UNICEF and international non-governmental organizations, China has established transfer, training and recovery centers for trafficking victims in four provinces and has assisted more than 1,000 trafficked women and children. ACWF works closely with law enforcement agencies and border officials to raise their awareness of the problem of trafficking.
Read the full article
North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il From the Korea Times:
The United States eased some of its sanctions on North Korea last year, according to a U.S. government broadcaster Tuesday.
The Voice of America (VOA) said that U.S. President George W. Bush approved the lifting of some sanctions imposed on Pyongyang under an act governing human trafficking in mid-October, 2007. Washington notified the North of the decision.
The State Department designated North Korea as one of the worst states involved in human trafficking, and the act prevented the United States from offering any aid except humanitarian assistance. But the easing allowed Washington to provide assistance in educational and cultural exchanges to the extent that the aid doesn't damage its national interest.
This is the first time for the United States to lift any sanctions on North Korea since the communist country first appeared on its blacklist for human trafficking in 2003. An official of the State Department said the rare measure came in order to improve ties and expand exchange with North Korea. ``Though Washington wants to expand exchanges in various fields with Pyongyang, in reality, all the efforts are affected by the results of the six-party talks,'' the official said on condition of anonymity. ``The lifting of sanctions indicates the U.S. intention to open its doors for more exchanges and better relations with North Korea.'' In a report on human trafficking in 2007, the State Department said prostitution and forced labor often take place in North Korea and human trafficking of female North Korean defectors also exists in China. The department classified North Korea as the third-worst nation in the world in terms of human trafficking because Pyongyang hasn't made any effort to improve the situation.
Meanwhile, Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur said last month that North Korea has shown no improvement in its human rights record including human trafficking and still systematically tortures its citizens. Muntarbhorn condemned North Korea's practice of public executions, inhumane prison conditions, and oppression of dissidents.
