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MEDIA RELEASE
REPORT EMBARGOED UNTIL 9 A.M. EST FRIDAY SEPT. 18, 2015
NORTH KOREA EXPANDING DETENTION OF WOMEN: REPORT
As More Women Flee Hardship, More Land in Pyongyang’s Gulag
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2015—North Korea’s hardline regime is jailing increasing numbers of women, many forcibly returned from China after fleeing economic hardship at home, according to a report released today by the nonprofit Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).
Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression and Prisoner Disappearances “shows Pyongyang’s human rights situation remains abysmal,” HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu said. “Women—desperate to ensure their families’ survival after catastrophic famine in the 1990s—have been excessively victimized.”
To cope with economic hardship, numerous women have sought to leave tightly closed North Korea in search of opportunities to work or trade, mainly by crossing into China. “This report finds that, after their repatriation from China, thousands of North Korean women have been arbitrarily arrested—and detention facilities for women have notably expanded,” Scarlatoiu said.
In particular, authorities have since 2008 added a new women’s section at the facility known as Kyo-hwa-so No. 12 in Jongo-ri, North Hamgyong Province, an impoverished region in the northernmost part of the country along the Chinese border, the report says. The new women’s section holds more than 1,000 prisoners.
"There is a kyohwaso in Hamheung where the North Korean authorities imprisoned women forcibly repatriated from China. As more women were forcibly repatriated from China, the authorities decided to open a facility closer to the border to shorten the time needed to transport the prisoners. This is the reason behind the expansion of the kyo-hwa-so at Jongo-ri," said Jung Gwang-il, former Camp 15 (Yodok) political prisoner.
David Hawk, a veteran human rights investigator, interviewed North Korean defectors over two months and worked with Colorado-based AllSource Analysis (ASA), a leading global provider of high-resolution satellite imagery, to produce the report, HRNK’s fourth on the topic since 2003.
“The North Korean gulag is no longer hidden. Its web of political prisons and labor camps—many visible on Google Earth—is there for all to see,” Hawk said. “But the men and women trapped inside this are hidden still, subject to enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and forced labor under extremely harsh conditions.”
Nicholas Eberstadt, HRNK Board member also pointed out that "North Korea's "hidden gulag" is no longer as hidden as it once was—thanks in part to David Hawk's path-breaking work in documenting its existence and detailing its operation."
“These political prisoners, especially women, are the most vulnerable persons in North Korea, and monitoring the camps through satellite imagery and analysis gives us the best possibility of bringing camp restructuring and the plight of political prisoners to light,” said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. of AllSource Analysis and HRNK report author.
HRNK co-chair Roberta Cohen called on the international community to demand an accounting of all those detained, missing, or dead in North Korean detention. “North Korean leader Kim Jong-un must be reminded of the mounting evidence that could soon be used to try him and his regime for crimes against humanity,” she said.
“Women in particular are fleeing North Korea in ever greater numbers. When they are apprehended, they are subjected to deliberate starvation, persecution, and punishment. Their situation cries out for international attention,” Cohen said, noting that countless more North Korean women who cross into China are sold or forced into marriage or prostitution, as evidenced in another HRNK report, Lives for Sale, published a few years ago and available on HRNK.ORG.
The Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression and Prison Disappearances documents the particular vulnerabilities of North Korean women jailed in a network of “political gulags” (kwan-li-so) and “labor gulags” (kyo-hwa-so). Increasingly, these facilities house women who have attempted to flee the country, and here, rates of mortality, malnutrition, forced labor, and exploitation are high.
HRNK’s research further addresses “double disappearances,” or North Koreans who vanished first into political prisons and again as such detention facilities were dismantled or relocated. "I believe the North Korean authorities dismantled [some of these facilities] because of the investigation of the UN Commission of Inquiry and increasing international attention," said Jung Gwang-il.
Jacqueline Pak, HRNK Board member said: “HRNK’s Hidden Gulag report series by David Hawk critically demonstrates why and how the human rights issues remain more vital and urgent than ever, as the fundamental rights of North Koreans continue to be breathlessly ignored by the Kim Jung Un regime.”
In 2014, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry accused the regime of grave, systematic, and widespread human rights abuses. The tightly closed, nuclear-armed Communist regime rejects such accusations, which it regards as part of a US-led effort to topple it.
HRNK was founded in 2001 as nonprofit research organization dedicated to documenting human rights conditions in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as North Korea is formally known. An estimated 400,000 people are believed to have died in the country’s system of political prison camps, while another 120,000 are jailed there now. Visit www.hrnk.org to find more about HRNK and download the entire report along with previous publications. The report is also attached to this email, as a PDF file.
REPORT EMBARGOED UNTIL 9 A.M. EST FRIDAY SEPT. 18, 2015
Contact: Greg Scarlatoiu, [email protected]; 202-499-7973
Board of Directors
Roberta Cohen (Co-Chair)
Non-Resident Senior Fellow,
Brookings Institution
Specializing in Humanitarian and Human Rights Issues
Andrew Natsios (Co-Chair)
Former Administrator,
U.S. Agency for International Development
Director,
Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs
Executive Professor, The Bush School of Government & Public Service,
Texas A&M University
Author of The Great North Korean Famine
Suzanne Scholte (Vice-Co-Chair)
President,
Defense Forum Foundation
Seoul Peace Prize Laureate
Gordon Flake (Vice-Co-Chair)
Chief Executive Officer, Perth USAsia Centre,
The University of Western Australia
Co-author, Paved with Good Intentions:
The NGO Experience in North Korea
Helen-Louise Hunter (Secretary)
Attorney
Author of Kim Il-Song’s North Korea
John Despres (Treasurer)
Consultant on International Financial & Strategic Affairs
Morton Abramowitz
Senior Fellow,
The Century Foundation
Jerome Cohen
Co-Director, US-Asia Law Institute,
NYU Law School
Adjunct Senior Fellow,
Council on Foreign Relations
Lisa Colacurcio
Advisor, Impact Investments
Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Associate Dean,
Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles
Jack David
Senior Fellow,
Hudson Institute
Paula Dobriansky
Chair, World Affairs Council of America
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University
Distinguished National Security Chair,
U.S. Naval Academy
Nicholas Eberstadt
Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy,
American Enterprise Institute
Author of books on North Korea including North Korea in Transition: Politics, Economy, and Society
Carl Gershman
President,
National Endowment for Democracy
Stephen Kahng
President,
Kahng Foundation
David Kim
Coordinator,
The Asia Foundation
Debra Liang-Fenton
U.S. Institute of Peace
Former Executive Director, HRNK
Winston Lord
Former Assistant Secretary for East Asia,
Department of State
Ambassador to China
Director of Policy Planning Staff,
Department of State
President,
Council on Foreign Relations
Chairman,
National Endowment for Democracy
Kevin C. McCann
Formerly of Counsel, Paul Hastings LLP
Marcus Noland
Executive Vice President and Director of Studies,
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Author of books on North Korea including Avoiding the Apocalypse: the Future of the Two Koreas
Jacqueline Pak
Professor,
George Washington University
Katrina Lantos Swett
President and CEO,
Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice
Executive Director
Greg Scarlatoiu
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(Published by the National Institute for Public Policy)
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