Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:26 pm
Time: 11:26 pm
Results for human rights (north korea and china)
1 results foundAuthor: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Title: Lives for Sale: Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to China Summary: This report calls the world’s attention to the suffering of North Korean women who have become the victims of trafficking and forced marriages when escaping their country for a new life in China. Not only are the political and economic rights of these women neglected by their own government, but also by the government of their country of asylum. Too often the failure of both North Korea and China to protect them has been overlooked by the international community. Women represent the majority of North Koreans who flee into China. One of the reasons they cross the border is lack of sufficient food or the means of survival in their own country. For almost twenty years, famine has stalked North Korea. It reached its peak in the mid-1990s but remains a specter, and may reach crisis proportions again. Caused largely by government policies, combined with natural disasters, the famine of the 1990s killed and displaced millions of North Koreans. Women of the classes defined by the regime as politically disloyal became especially vulnerable when husbands and fathers died, and they began to flee to China in search of food and economic opportunities for themselves and their families. Unauthorized departure, however, is a crime in North Korea. Although seeking opportunities in China, they instead became victims of traffickers and victims of men in China who paid traffickers to purchase a North Korean “wife.” The “marriages” the women enter, often through coercion, have no official standing in China and are given no legal protection. The women in these marriages are frequently “trapped,” unable to free themselves from arrangements in which they were sold for a price. They also live in fear of being returned to North Korea where they can expect incarceration, punishment, and even possible torture and death. Yet they are not permitted to prove they are political refugees or refugees sur place. Instead, they must bear exploitation and insecurity in China so as to avoid forced repatriation and punishment. Even when they are sold to partners who do not abuse them and raise families, they are still denied their basic rights. They and their children often have no legal status. Children conceived in China are usually not protected by the laws of either China or North Korea. The interviews in this report make clear the difficult choices facing North Korean women who describe in their own words what has happened to them. “They would not allow me to leave the house,” one woman recounted, “then someone from Yanji came to take me to Heilongjiang Province by train. Only when we arrived in a village in Heilongjiang did I hear I was going to get married.” Another recalled, “I ran away from the house, not knowing where to go. Within a few hours, I was caught and brought back by the Chinese man. He took out his leather belt and whipped me.” One woman who was forcibly returned to North Korea and escaped again to China said, “I was interrogated and detained for four weeks. During the interrogation, the man who was asking me questions suddenly punched me in my left eye with his fist. My eyeball cracked and I lost eyesight in that eye immediately…” These are stories of human suffering that have received far too little notice in the world at large. The human rights abuses of the North Korean regime, increasingly made known by news accounts, reports of the United Nations Secretary-General and Special Rapporteur, defectors, and organizations like ours, are beginning to be understood and condemned internationally. What is often ignored, however, is that these abuses do not stay in the confines of North Korea but spill over into neighboring countries, and inflict pain on the lives of North Korean citizens outside their borders. Often overlooked too are the special needs of North Korea’s women and the desperation many face. This is a report about women whose lives are at risk and for sale. It makes recommendations for change. We urge that these recommendations be widely read and acted upon. Details: Washington, DC: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2009. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 18, 2012 at: http://hrnk.org/wp-content/uploads/Lives_for_Sale.pdf Year: 2009 Country: China URL: http://hrnk.org/wp-content/uploads/Lives_for_Sale.pdf Shelf Number: 125016 Keywords: Forced MarriagesForced RepatriationHuman Rights (North Korea and China)Human TraffickingRefugees |