Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Might Trump Administration decrease focus on North Korean human rights?

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On Wednesday Tomás Ojea Quintana, the new United Nations Special Rapporteur for North Korean human rights, met with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in Seoul to consult on plans to again bring a resolution before the United Nations Security Council next month to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry issued a report comparing ongoing atrocities in North Korea to those committed by Nazi Germany, and documenting a network of political prisons in the country incarcerating nearly 120,000 men, women and children, as well as widespread and systematic abuses that include torture, enslavement, rape and murder.

The recent election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president has raised questions over whether his administration will prioritize support for human rights abroad.  Trump has said he would be willing to meet informally with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without any pre-conditions.

Rights advocates are concerned the President-elect will be willing to overlook the North’s human rights violations and drop calls for further U.N. rebukes in exchange for stronger support from China and Russia to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

[VoA]

North Korea already moving flood victims into newly constructed homes

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North Korea has begun moving residents into newly built homes in a region recovering from recent floods that have been described as the worst since World War II.

The Russian embassy quoted Cho In Chol, the vice chairman of the Rason City People’s Committee, who said construction on a cluster of new homes was completed on Nov. 10 and residents were being moved in by Tuesday.

A Western diplomat who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity also said victims of the August and September floods were being assigned to their new homes. The diplomat said he has visited sites in the city of Hoeryong, Onsong and Musan Counties and witnessed the construction on 10,000 homes nearing completion, according to the report.

Patrick Elliott, a shelter adviser with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the recovery work has been taking place at an incredibly rapid rate, and at a pace that would usually take 3 years in a developing country.

[UPI]

North Korea the world’s worst religious persecutor

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Many governments persecute people of religious faith. However, one nation stands out: North Korea.

Before World War II missionaries were active throughout the peninsula and more than a fifth of the population was Christian.

Today, North Korea (DPRK) ostentatiously treats anyone of faith, but especially Christians, as hostile. Open Doors recently rated the DPRK number one for the 14th year in a row on the group’s “World Watch List.” Explained Open Doors: “Christianity is not only seen as ‘opium of the people’ as is normal for all communist states; it is also seen as deeply Western and despicable.

“Christians try to hide their faith as far as possible to avoid arrest and being sent to a labor camp. Thus, being Christian has to be a well-protected secret, even within families, and most parents refrain from introducing their children to the Christian faith in order to make sure that nothing slips their tongue when they are asked.”

Last year the British group Aid to the Church in Need published a persecution report which figured that some 50,000 Christians may currently be in the DPRK’s penal camps. The organization warned that the Kim Jong-un regime appeared to be tightening controls over potential dissent, including a vigorous crackdown on Christians. Aid reported that “Since 1953, at least 200,000 Christians have gone missing. If caught by the regime, unauthorized Christians face arrest torture or in some cases public execution.”

A special UN Commission of Inquiry pointed to the “almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” Believers “are prohibited from practicing their religion” and punished severely if disobedient. The ruling regime “considers the spread of Christianity a particularly severe threat.” Read more

Canadian advocates for North Korean rights and refugees

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A defector from North Korea is scheduled to talk about her life under the brutal regime during a visit to Queen’s University in Toronto.

“It is definitely going to be an eye-opener,” said Danny Yeo, president of the Queen’s chapter of HanVoice, a Toronto-based non-profit organization that advocates for North Korean rights and refugees through political and grassroots advocacy in an attempt to raise more awareness among Canadian decision-makers.

“Han” means “one,” Yeo explained. A fourth-year politics student, he came to Canada from South Korea when he was five. He founded the Queen’s chapter of HanVoice last January. “I have been interested in this cause ever since I was 16,” Yeo said.

There are also chapters at York University, Western University and the University of Toronto. The chapters support the main body in its efforts to help change legislation to make it easier for North Korean refugees to settle in Canada. While the local chapters work to raise awareness about the issue in their own communities, they also take part in HanVoice‘s Pioneer Projects program, in which young North Korean defectors are invited to share their stories about life under the oppressive regime.

This year’s speaker is Audrey Park. Part of a family of seven, Park grew up in North Korea during a famine in the 1990s partly orchestrated by the government, often having only one meal a day. When Park was 10, she and her mother fled to China, bribing a border guard to allow them to cross. They lived in China for seven years before being deported. Twice more they escaped before finally reaching the safety of South Korea in 2006.

Park’s speech will put a human face to the misery of living in the country and the need to help the refugees settle in Canada, Yeo said. Park is currently working as an intern for Yonah Martin, the first Canadian of Korean descent to serve in the Senate.

[Kingston Whig-Standard]

Over 75 percent of North Korean Christians do not survive persecution

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Human rights groups are reporting on new grim statistics from North Korea and its treatment of religious minorities, including Christians, revealing that more than 75 percent of those subjected to torture, imprisonment, and other punishments do not survive.

UPI reported on statistics from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, a South Korean nonprofit organization, which are based on the testimonies of defectors, identifying over 65,000 cases of religious persecution.

International Christian Concern, Open Doors USA, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide are some of the persecution watchdog groups that have documented the horrific treatment of minorities in North Korea.

CSW’s report released in September found close to 99 percent of 11,370 defectors in the study confirmed that there is no religious freedom under the government of Kim Jong-un. It also noted that the North Korean government tortures, mutilates, and kills Christians. The report added that some of the documented incidents against believers include “being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot.”

The interviews also reveal less than 23 percent of victims of religious persecution survive their punishment, according to defectors’ testimonies.

“A policy of guilt by association applies, meaning that the relatives of Christians are also detained regardless of whether they share the Christian belief. Even North Koreans who have escaped to China, and who are or become Christians, are often repatriated and subsequently imprisoned in a political prison camp,” CSW noted.

As the watchdog group also explained, religious belief is seen as a major threat to North Korea’s leadership, with Christians often accused of being imperialists seeking to undermine the rule of the ‘supreme leader,’ as Kim Jong-un is known.

[The Christian Post]

Statistics and insights on North Korean women with Chinese children

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Female North Korean defectors have an estimated 20,000-30,000 children who were born in China, according to one source. These children are a result of marriages to rural Chinese men, a kind of indentured relationship that is little better than sex slavery, with Chinese men “buying” the women from border traffickers.

“I escaped to China trusting a broker, but ended up being sold for money and had to endure all kinds of abuse as I was dragged from one location to another,” one defector recalls. “Some women who are sold into sexual slavery are stripped naked and locked up so that they cannot escape.”

The children these women have with Chinese men are frequently unable to get legal protection or go to school in China because their mothers are considered illegal immigrants or their fathers refuse to register them as their own.

The problems continue even if these women make it to South Korea with their children. The children are not entitled to the same educational and financial support in South Korea as defectors. A woman surnamed Chung who arrived in South Korea in 2010, said, “I arrived in South Korea with two children I had in China, and they don’t get any assistance, which makes life difficult for us. And a major problem is that they can’t speak much Korean.”

Savvy women lie to South Korean investigators, saying their children were born in the North but only grew up in China, which explains why they do not speak the language. A government source said, “There’s no way to check their place of birth, so we often take their word for it.”

The Education Ministry on Sunday said 1,249 children of North Korean defectors who were born in China went to school in South Korea as of the end of last year, outnumbering the 1,226 students who were born in North Korea.

[Chosun Ilbo]

South Korean court dismisses defector petition to protect family in prison camp

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A South Korean court has dismissed an appeal by a group of defectors in South Korea and Japan, requesting humanitarian relief and protection for their family members imprisoned in North Korean detention camps. This marks the first time that a verdict regarding humanitarian relief for those in North Korean detention camps has been reached by a South Korean court.

Judge Jung Jae Woo announced that the claims of two North Korean defectors to provide humanitarian protection for four family members currently imprisoned at the Yodok political prison camp were dismissed. Such dismissals enable the court to end a trial without hearing if the claims are deemed as improper or unsuitable.

The North Korean Defectors’ Council for the Promotion of Freedom and Unification, which led the current lawsuit, had argued, “North Korea is technically a territory of the Republic of Korea according to the Constitution, therefore, North Korean residents have the same rights according to the law as South Korean citizens.”

The judge explained, “It is almost impossible for the litigators to predict or execute the outcomes of the trial even if the verdict of discharge is made, because there are no mechanisms to enforce it.”

Judge Jung also dismissed a human rights relief petition from Kawasaki Echo (aged 74), president of the defectors’ community ‘Korea of All’ in Japan, requesting the release of 93,340 people who boarded repatriation ships to the North between the years 1959-1984. The dismissal was based on the determination that president Kawasaki was unable to specify the names of the captives or their locations, thereby rendering the petition unsuitable for filing.

[Daily NK]

30000 North Korean defectors will have officially reached South Korea in November 2016

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The number of North Korean defectors who have arrived in South Korea over the years will reach the 30,000 mark this month, the unification ministry said Sunday.

“As of late October, there are 29,948 former North Koreans in the South so the 30,000 mark should be reached around Nov. 15-16,” an official from the ministry in charge of formulating North Korean policy said.

He said Seoul plans to mark the occasion with a new resettlement policy that will better help escapees integrate into South Korean society. The new plan aims to facilitate greater social participation of North Korea defectors, help them find jobs and concentrate on helping youngsters assimilate into schools and their studies.

There has been a 21 percent spike in defectors reaching the country this year compared to 2015. Official data showed that 2016 marked the first year since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011 that the number of defectors increased noticeably. Initially, a drop in numbers was attributed to tighter border control along the North Korea-China frontier which is not generally heavily guarded.

Official sources attributed this year’s increase to the “reign of terror” perpetrated by Kim, and tighter international sanctions that is forcing North Korean workers living abroad to repatriate more money.

Those defectors who cited freedom and discontent over North Korean politics reached 87.8 percent in the 2014-16 period, from 33.3 percent before 2001, and 42.1 percent in the 2002-2005 period.

[Yonhap]

35 percent of North Korean defectors cite freedom as key motivation

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More than a third of North Korean asylum seekers settling in the South cited freedom as the key motivation for defecting, data has shown.

Hanawon, a facility in which defectors receive three months of resettlement education after making it to South Korea, said 35 percent of the defectors surveyed (2014) said they escaped their homeland to seek liberty, marking a sharp rise from 9.6 percent tallied in 2001.

17.5 percent said they escaped from the North due to the discontent against the communist system, compared with 6.2 percent posted earlier.

As to the makeup of the defectors, women make up 78 percent of the total North Korean refugees now in South Korea.

[Yonhap]

China offers US$3 million in humanitarian aid to flood-hit North Korea

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China on Wednesday announced a US$3 million relief package to North Korea to help it deal with flooding earlier this year that left hundreds dead.

The flooding along the Tumen River, which runs between the two countries, has left about 70,000 homeless. It was triggered by Typhoon Lionrock, which swept through North Hamgyong and Ryanggang provinces two months ago.

The aid announcement comes as North Korea and international organizations are finding it difficult to secure enough funds for disaster stricken areas, mainly due to political concerns stemming from Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

The ministry said the aid provision was decided following a request from North Korea.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said late last month that the country was considering building temporary floating bridges on the river to transport relief goods to north Hamgyong province.

[South China Morning Post]