Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Increased number of North Korean defectors to South Korea in 2019

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A total of 546 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea in the first half of 2019, a 12 per cent rise from the figure recorded in the same months a year earlier, the South Korean government has announced.

The number of people fleeing the North reached an annual high of 2,914 in 2009, while the average number is between 1,000 and 1,500 since current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un came to power in late 2011.

More than 32,000 North Korean defectors currently live in South Korea and Seoul has announced plans to expand state subsidies to help refugees settle.

[AAP]

Human rights related to North Korean nuclear talks Part 1

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Young-jun Park recalls life in North Korea as defined by deprivation. Food shortages that wrought starvation. The lack of health care that brought more death. Park and his family eventually found their way to Seoul. In the ensuing years, he finished high school and graduated college, and he now works at a nonprofit funded by the South Korean government that assists North Korean refugees. “North Koreans are struggling so much,” Park says.

Reports from Human Rights Watch and the U.N. show that little progress on human rights has occurred in North Korea since Mr. Park fled in 2009, or in the five years since a U.N. investigation found that its government had committed “a wide array of crimes against humanity.”

The state-imposed violations include forced labor for adults and students, torture and execution of political prisoners, and pervasive abuse of women, children, and people with disabilities. Civil liberties enshrined in the country’s constitution – freedom of speech, religion, and the press – remain a mirage.

The funneling of state resources into weapons programs, coupled with a poor harvest season and the impact of international sanctions, has created a food crisis for some 10 million North Koreans, 40% of the population. Human rights advocates warn of a recurrence of the mid-1990s famine that killed as many as 3 million people if conditions fail to improve.

North Korea has enlisted China’s help to stop the flow of refugees – the Chinese government sends back defectors as a matter of policy – and those arrested face punishment ranging from indefinite prison terms to the death penalty. Even so, desperate to find freedom, thousands attempt to flee every year.

“They know there’s no future in North Korea,” says Gyoung-bin Ko, president of the Hana Foundation. “They want to give a better life to their children.” Read more

Human rights related to North Korean nuclear talks Part 2

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Recent reports from Human Rights Watch and the United Nations confirm that a thriving North Korea exists only in propaganda promoted by President Kim Jong Un. Yet as U.S. and South Korean officials seek to persuade him to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, they have seldom broached the issue of human rights.

The omission has drawn scrutiny from advocates as much for the proximity and shared history of the countries as for South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s background as a human rights lawyer. Chung-in Moon, a special adviser to President Moon, asserts that pushing human rights to the fore would sink negotiations.  “You can’t raise human rights with North Korea. If you do, they won’t listen after that,” Chung-in Moon says. He views defusing the nuclear threat as a necessary first step. “Once we solve that, then we can address the issue of human rights, and North Korea will be more open to doing its part.”

Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division for Human Rights Watch, considers the silence from U.S. and South Korean officials on North Korea’s living conditions a form of abandonment. “A nuclear deal might be good for the rest of the world,” he says. “But it won’t change the lives of the North Korean people one bit.”

The Hana Foundation, established by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification in 2010, provides an array of resettlement services to refugees. Mindful of the ministry’s oversight, Gyoung-bin Ko the president of the Hana Foundation, demurs on the subject of whether government officials should press Mr. Kim on human rights. He says simply, “We have a long way to go.”

“Peace will mean the end of sanctions and bring outside investment,” says Spencer Kim, co-founder of the Pacific Century Institute, a nonprofit policy and research firm. “That will be the biggest driver of human rights.”

[Christian Science Monitor]

North Korean cybersex slave meets pastor online

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It was during the summer of 2018 that Lee Yumi finally saw her chance to escape her unwanted life as a cybersex slave.

In order to keep a close eye on them, Lee’s captor slept in the living room of the small apartment from where she worked along with another young North Korean woman, Kwang. “The front door was always locked from the outside and there was no handle on the inside. … Every six months, he would take us out to the park. During those outings, he would always stay right next to us, so we never got to talk to anyone,” said Lee. In 2015, Lee tried to escape by climbing out of a window and down a metal drain, but she fell and hurt her back and leg. She still limps slightly.

“One day one of my customers [from South Korea] realized I was North Korean and was being held captive,” said Lee. While most men probably knew the girls weren’t South Korean, because North Koreans have different accents and dialects to people in the south, they chose to look the other way. This man was different. “He bought a laptop and let me take control of the screen remotely, so I could send messages without my boss noticing,” Lee said.

The man also gave her the phone number of a South Korean pastor named Chun Ki-Won, one of a band of Korean pastors who specialize in helping North Korean women escape from China. Chun said his Christian aid organization, Durihana, has helped over 1,000 defectors reach Seoul since 1999. Korean media has nicknamed him the Asian Schindler, after the German industrialist and Nazi Party member who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews.

In September 2018, Lee contacted Pastor Chun on a Korean messaging service. “Hi, I want to go to South Korea. Can you help me?” read the first message she sent.

Over the following weeks, a plan was hatched: Chun would send a team to Yanji to extract Lee and her fellow sex slave Kwang. On October 26, while Yumi’s boss was away for the day, Durihana‘s members arrived at the foot of the building. The two girls knotted their bedsheets together and dropped them out of their window. The extraction team then tied a rope to the sheets, which the girls pulled up and used to lower themselves safely to the ground.

After escaping Yanji, Lee and Kwang traveled across China on buses and trains using fake Korean passports. Their last stop was Kunming, in China’s deep southwest. Lee and Kwang met with a Chinese man who took them across the mountains into a neighboring country. “We walked for five hours through the jungle, before reaching a road where a car was waiting for us,” said Kwang.

Chun later met them in the middle of the night on the side of a road. “I burst into tears as soon as I saw him,” said Kwang, who is now 24 years old. “For the first time in a very long time, I felt safe.”

As they rode towards the South Korean embassy, Lee stared giddily at the urban landscape unfolding before her eyes. “I’m so happy!” she said, as the embassy approached. The embassy, which receives about 10 defectors a month, according to officials, kept the women for about 10 days for questioning. Defectors who satisfy the questioning process then fly to freedom in South Korea. Read more

North Korean defectors deserve an international response

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In the past year, the number of North Korean defectors has declined by approximately 17% with even fewer making it to South Korea. This is largely due to the increase in security monitoring on the Chinese border and an increase in police patrols in some of North Korea’s metropolitan cities. As it stands, the majority of defecting refugees escape from the North Eastern provinces (roughly 80%) as these are less militarized and provide easier access into China.

The repatriation policy of the Chinese government owes to the fact that defectors are considered “illegal economic migrants.” Given that the preservation of this relationship takes precedence over the rights, protections and freedom of North Korean refugees it is incumbent on the U.S. and the extended international community to respond to this crisis in an appropriate way. China, itself negligible when it comes to human rights, won’t change its policy soon.

There are however many not-for-profit organizations based in South Korea that actively promote the rights and freedoms of North Korean defectors which is cause for hope.

On the international stage, U.S. President Donald Trump has met with Kim Jong Un in relation to denuclearisation and the lifting of economic sanctions. These meetings have also included a brief focus on human rights. There remains an opportunity for U.S. foreign policy makers to instigate change in relation to the situation by way of incorporating human rights dialogue into the talks and future relationship of the U.S. and North Korea.

In July 2018, The North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of 2017  outrightly condemned the treatment of North Korean citizens by the oppressive regime and called upon the regime to respect the rights of its citizens. On top of this, it also supported the allocation of funds to support a special envoy on North Korean human rights at an international level. As a result, the meetings between Kim and Trump have followed on from this renewed legislation which ought to give the international community cause for more hope. While denuclearisation is important, human rights dialogue must factor into the North Korean strategy.

[The Organization for World Peace]

Where sympathy for North Korea defectors lies

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Most North Koreans seeking sanctuary in China cross the Tumen River into Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. With its large population of Korean-Chinese, North Koreans have a chance of finding people with whom they can communicate and who are willing to provide them shelter and economic support.

Despite the national Chinese policy of arrest and deportation, local implementation in Yanbian is tempered by intra-ethnic solidarity that Korean-Chinese officials feel for their deprived brothers and sisters from North Korea. Furthermore, many people in Yanbian either have direct experience, or have learned of their parents’ experiences, of being sheltered in North Korea during the political chaos and economic dislocation during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. These experiences generate sympathy for the plight of North Koreans.

If individuals cross the border to survive and present no threat to public safety, the local authorities and police tend to look the other way, often for months. Indeed, several North Koreans told Refugees International that they received assistance from border guards when they first crossed into China.

However, North Koreans live under constant fear of arrest and deportation while in China. They have no realistic options to live freely and meet their basic needs, and the few courageous individuals and organizations seeking to provide protection and assistance, whether Korean-Chinese, South Korean, or the rare few from outside the region, are themselves under constant pressure from the Chinese authorities to curtail their activities or risk expulsion.

[International Journal of Korean Unification Studies]

What happens to North Korean defectors after being forcibly returned from China

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Leaving North Korea without permission is a criminal offense. So North Koreans forcibly returned after fleeing face incarceration in political prison camps (kwanliso), ordinary prison camps (kyohwaso, or re-education correctional facilities), short-term forced-labor camps (rodong danllyeindae), temporary detention facilities (jipkyulso), or possible execution.

Research by Human Right Watch and other groups has found pervasive abuses and horrid conditions in North Korea’s political prison camps, including meager rations that keep detainees on the edge of starvation, almost no medical care, lack of adequate shelter and clothes, repeated mistreatment that includes sexual assault and torture by guards, and summary executions.

Yet China routinely forcibly repatriates North Koreans, labeling them as illegal “economic migrants”. Forcing North Korean refugees back to their country constitutes refoulement, that is, sending someone back to a place where they would face threats to their lives or freedom. As a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, as well as to the 1984 Convention against Torture, China is specifically obligated not to force back anyone who would be at risk of persecution or torture upon return.

For North Koreans who are returned, if not sent to political prisoner camps, authorities may instead impose sentences of 2 to 15 years of forced labor in ordinary prison camps. Inmates in ordinary prison camps face forced labor in dangerous working conditions, repeated mistreatment by guards, and little nutritious food or medical care.

A former senior official in the North Korean state security service (bowibu), who previously worked on the border and received North Koreans sent back from China, told Human Rights Watch that officials under his command tortured every returnee to find out where they went in China, whom they contacted, and what they had done while outside North Korea.

The 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea found that crimes against humanity, including torture, execution, enslavement, and sexual violence, are committed against prisoners and people forcibly returned to North Korea from China.

[Human Rights Watch]

South Korean aid for North Korea

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South Korea has vowed to move quickly on its plans to provide $8 million worth of humanitarian aid to North Korea through international organizations and is also considering sending food to the country that says it’s suffering its worst drought in decades.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Monday it will discuss its plans with the World Food Program and the United Nations Children’s Fund so the aid reaches North Korean children and pregnant women quickly.

Seoul hopes the aid will help revive diplomacy and engagement with Pyongyang that tapered off amid a stalemate in nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea. But Seoul has yet to decide on concrete plans amid public frustration over recent North Korean missile tests.

[AP]

North Korean woman said she was “living like an animal” in her country

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A woman who defected from North Korea last year planned and executed her escape on her own, she said, because North Korean authorities have caught and killed most of the brokers who used to smuggle people over the border to South Korea.

She was fed up with “living like an animal” in her country where she struggled daily to survive.

To make her escape, she crossed the frozen river that runs along the China border, climbed over a barbed wire fence, and walked for two hours through knee-deep piles of snow in the middle of the night. In one hand she carried poison, in case she was caught by soldiers guarding the border.

Eventually she came upon a small village, where she hoped to find other North Koreans who had escaped and would be sympathetic to her cause. She approached a house with a light in the window, and found a Chinese man instead. She begged to make just one phone call to friends of friends living in South Korea. “The man was very kind, he offered me food and offered me a warm place to stay, and so I was able to eat and he helped me contact my friends.”

She eventually made her way to South Korea, and was astounded to find hot and cold running water, and working toilets. “The toilets — there is water in there, and it cleans out right away. That was just the most amazing thing.”

She recently made it to the U.S. “I [was] shocked when I was in South Korea, but when I came to America, … it just blew my mind. I grew up being told Americans are all like wolves, and our enemy that we must destroy, and I was bombarded with that kind of education,” she added. “But when I actually came and met Americans, they were very warm and kind people.”

Now in the States, she plans to pursue a career in medicine, and hopes one day to return to her neighborhood in a free North Korea. “I believe this is not just my dream, but it’s a dream of all those people who escape from North Korea, and also the people who still suffer there,” she said.

[The Daily Caller]

Lowest rainfall in 100 years in North Korea leaves millions at risk of starvation

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North Korea’s worst drought in decades is being driven by the lowest rainfall in a century, according to the country’s official state newspaper.

North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper—the official publication of Kim Jong Un’s ruling party—blamed the ongoing drought on lower than expected levels of precipitation. The newspaper said North Korea received just 56.3 millimeters (2.21 inches) of rain or snow from January to May 15, the lowest amount since 1917. The article noted that water was running out in the country’s lakes and reservoirs, and explained the lack of rainfall “is causing a significant effect on the cultivation of wheat, barley, corn, potatoes and beans,” according to Al Jazeera.

Yonhap reported that South Korean authorities are preparing to send food to North Korea if the situation deteriorates. Any food aid may give a shot in the arm to stalled negotiations between the North, South and U.S. on the denuclearization of the peninsula and the lifting of sanctions, the agency noted.

Earlier this month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme (WFP) said more than 10 million North Koreans—representing some 40 percent of the national population—were already facing severe food shortages. Such an extensive drought will likely exacerbate such food pressures, leaving many at risk of starvation. The report said that North Koreans have been surviving on just 300g (10.5 oz) of food each day so far this year. During a visit to South Korea earlier this week, WFP Executive Director David Beasely told reporters the body has “very serious concerns” about the situation in North Korea.

Last week, Mohamed Babiker, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ North Korea office, said the organization was “particularly concerned about the impact that this early drought will have on children and adults who are already struggling to survive. Even before this drought, one in five children under 5 years old was stunted because of poor nutrition. We are concerned that these children will not be able to cope with further stress on their bodies.”

Thus far, there is no suggestion the drought could spark a famine as severe as the one that is believed to have killed millions of North Koreans in the 1990s.

[Newsweek]