clipped from linkglobal.org
North Korea
UPDATE:
Recent flooding in the country has triggered a massive relief operation by NGO's and foreign countries. An estimated 10,000 are expected to be dead, with thousands more homeless. The media is already calling it the worst flooding in North Korea in over a century. Considering the flooding that caused 3 million deaths happened only a decade ago, this recent estimation does not bode well for the already impoverished country of North Korea; another devastating famine looks all but imminent. Also, fresh reports of outbreaks of several diseases raise risks for an already severely malnourished population. International aid has also dried up as a result of the DPRK's missile and nuclear tests. At time of print, the WFP had only reached 10% of the funds needed to feed North Koreans for the 2007 year. Conditions are not improving in any sense.
INSIDE THE DPRK
CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN THE DPRK
Primary accounts from defectors and satellite photos point to at least a dozen political prison camps and thirty more forced labor camps. The dozen camps house over 200,000 citizens deemed as dissenters or dangerous to the government. There have been accounts of forced abortions, biochemical experiments and forced manual labor (including for children), public executions, and various other cruel and severe punishments. Some reports from defectors indicate a standard policy that guards who capture or kill attempted escapees would be promised college tuition. As a result, guards would often force prisoners to climb a fence, then shoot them and claim government recognition and reward. North Korea is also the only country in the world that imprisons children as political dissenters — even the camps of Stalin and Mao did not practice such punishment upon children. One forced labor camp experienced so many deaths from beatings by the guards that the guards were told to be less violent.
RESTRICTIONS ON FREEDOM IN THE DPRK
Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a benchmark, the government of North Korea has deliberately withheld from its own people every significant, internationally guaranteed right, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and protection from torture and slavery. Televisions and radios are built or adapted to allow for only government frequencies, and outside signals are blocked. The government requires all prayer and religious study to be supervised by the state and severely punishes North Koreans for worshipping independently in underground churches. Any seemingly innocuous actions such as whistling a South Korean pop song, refusing or forgetting to wear special pins with Kim Jong–Il or Kim Il–Sung, or expressing even minor grievances against the government, are considered political treason. Citizens that commit these "crimes" are often entered into the DPRK's system of re–education, forced labor and concentration camps.
HUNGER IN THE DPRK
In 1994, heavy rains hit North Korea, and nearly 5.4 million people were displaced, 330,000 hectares of agricultural land was destroyed, and 1.9 million tons of grain was swept away. North Korea's poor infrastructure was unable to cope with the flooding. As a result, famine ensued, and from 1995 to present, an estimated 2–3 million North Koreans have perished from starvation. Subsequent famines and floods have struck North Korea since 1994, further weakening their struggling economy, and today a quarter of its 24.6 million people remain critically dependent on foreign food aid for survival. In 2003, Amnesty International reported 13 million suffered from malnutrition — over 50% of North Koreaa's population. In 2005, the World Food Programme reported that 37% of all North Korean children were chronically malnourished. Defectors have reported citizens resorting to eating bugs, rodents, bark, and even human flesh in order to survive. Dysentery and other diseases run rampant throughout particularly the rural regions. Since 1995, the World Food Project has delivered four million tons of rations valued at US $1.3 billion dollars, and total food aid given by foreign countries to the DPRK amounts to over US $2 billion within the past decade. North Korea uses these rations to its own discretion; there is little monitoring allowed. The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that as much as 25%–30% of the aid does not actually go to those it is intended for.
OUTSIDE THE DPRK
NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES IN CHINA
LiNK estimates that up to 400,000 North Koreans have escaped to China, risking imprisonment, torture and execution, and remain in hiding from Chinese and North Korean authorities. Chinese authorities have placed bounties on the heads of these internationally–recognized refugees, and much larger bounties upon the heads of the activists who attempt to aid and protect these refugees. If caught by Chinese or North Korean authorities, these refugees are repatriated back to North Korea, where they face torture and possible execution. 70%–90% of North Korean women are sexually trafficked. They are captured and sold as chattel, concubines, or prostitutes. Some authorities of the People's Republic of China are directly complicit in the trafficking of women and girls from the DPRK into China by protecting the clubs where they are sold and by aggressively arresting and punishing those humanitarian workers who aid the women and girls in escaping from China. In addition, reports from LiNK field workers show that Chinese authorities that apprehend North Korean refugees often sell the refugees directly to slave traders and brokers themselves, an appalling violation of numerous laws even within China.
NORTH KOREAN CHILDREN IN CHINA
North Korean children who live in the streets have come to be called kkot–jebi ("flower swallows"). Usually orphans or unaccompanied minors, many of the children have either lost parents, been abandoned, or been separated. These children are usually younger boys, and make their presence often as beggars in markets, train stations, airports and sometimes karaoke bars and restaurants that cater to foreigners. The fortunate among them take refuge in shelters run by NGOs and organizations in the area, while teenagers often cross frequently between China and the DPRK to barter goods or bring small earnings back across the border to families in North Korea. During crackdowns by authorities in China, children are often the first to be rounded up. These kkot–jebi often learn "survival skills" from constantly being on the run, but many often arrive in third countries with serious psychological trauma from being sexually or physically abused while in China.
Many of these children have been born illegally in China, or crossed over at a very young age. As a result they become "stateless", lacking documents or identity papers marking them as North Korean. Because of their illegal status, these children have no opportunities for education and employment. A few have the opportunity to attend sympathizing schools run out of churches, and even fewer attend Chinese schools, for a significant fee. North Koreans have difficulty finding work; while in some rural areas there are opportunities to work on farms, fewer jobs are available in cities due to the much stronger police and military presence. All are at risk of exploitation and repatriation, and have no authorities to protect them.
NORTH KOREAN WOMEN IN CHINA
North Korean women in China are a vulnerable population, but can more easily lead relatively hidden lives in China as they can find jobs that require presence indoors — for example, housekeeping, or working as a governess. However, because of their insecure environments and their irregular status, women are often vulnerable to sexual exploitation, trafficking and abuse. North Korean women are often coerced, forced, or sometimes willingly sold and married to Chinese men. North Korean brides are usually sold for anywhere from 400–10,000 yuan (US $50–$1,250). Marriages involving undocumented North Korean women are not legally binding, and thus leave women still vulnerable to being caught and repatriated. In other cases, women are kidnapped and sold as sexual slaves or are forced to work in brothels or karaoke bars, and are sometimes sold multiple times over. Many trafficked women remain in their circumstances because they feel helpless and powerless to change their situation. Other women sometimes choose to make larger money as hostesses or in karaoke bars in order to buy help from smugglers in the hopes of making it safely to a third country.
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