Being Sold Like Swine
The following is a rough translation of an article written by Ryu In-ha at The Kyunghyang Newspaper. It is LFNKR’s belief that this article casts light on the situation of North Korean women victimized by human traffickers in China.
Seven out of ten North Korean defectors entering South Korea have been victims of Chinese human traffickers ― that is seventy percent.
Many North Korean women and girls are trafficked like pigs and sold into sexual slavery in China; it is not their problem, it is ours.
According to an article from the In-ha Ryu posted August 24, 2019 Kyunghyang Newspaper:
7 out of 10 North Korean defectors entering the South have been victims of human trafficking by Chinese brokers
“How much do we know about North Korean defectors?”
This question is now being asked, but only because a defector mother and her son starved to death recently. The sad truth is that North Koreans, even after fleeing to the South, even after gaining South Korean citizenship, are still treated as outsiders.
According to the “2018 North Korean Defectors Settlement Survey” released last February by the North Korean Refugees Foundation, the number of North Korean defectors living in South Korea totals 32,476. This, however, is not an exact number because unprotected North Koreans were excluded from this number. This term refers to North Korean defectors who previously had criminal records in China or elsewhere. Therefore, they do not qualify for government benefits, including various settlement subsidies. Some of them apply for refugee status, but few are accepted.
Most North Korean Refugees spend several years, even decades in China
According to unofficial data, about 34,000 North Koreans have entered the South to date. For about 3,000 of them, the intended destination was some third country such as China. Among North Korean defectors, the majority are women, and the ratio of male to female defectors ranges from two out of eight to three out of seven (20% – 42%). Women are overwhelmingly in the majority.
Only a few of these defectors enter South Korea directly from North Korea. The so-called ‘direct refugees’ are usually from among the upper classes in North Korea. This is because it is costly to go directly to the South without transiting through a third country. The exact inflow routes for these direct refugees are not known. It is known, however, that fees typically charged by a broker will vary from a minimum of 15 million won (about $12,600 USD) to as much as 30 million won ($25,210 USD) per person.
Most defectors reach South Korea via China, Vietnam or Thailand, the most common routes for North Korean defectors. Among female North Korean refugees, however, the majority stay in China for years, even decades before they can reach the South.
Dong-wan Kang, a professor at Dong-A University in Busan, said, “70% of the female North Korean defectors who reach the South have had lengthy rather than temporary stays in China.
Why do they remain in China for so long before entering Korea? The reason is sad but simple. Most of the North Korean women have been trafficked and sold by Chinese brokers. For the brokers, these North Korean women are like a cash crop. They are money in the pocket. And they are priced differently according to their age and appearance in the Chinese market. The younger and prettier they are, the more expensive they are when sold into prostitution, with the rest being sold to aged or disabled Chinese men.
Seven out of every ten North Korean refugee women in the country have been victims of human trafficking in China. A North Korean refugee said, “Many of the defectors who have been trafficked and sold into China will come to South Korea eventually.” And when they do, their problems are bound to become the South’s problems.
Similar stories can be found in a report released on May 20th this year by KFI (Korea Future Initiative), a non-profit organization based in London, UK. It published a 48-page report claiming that “the victims (mostly female North Korean defectors), usually ranging in age from 12 to 29 years, were held captive and sold. Others were abducted after entering China or were sold directly out of North Korea. The report reveals that victims were forced into some form of sex slavery and had been sold multiple times within a year after leaving their home.
According to the report, most of the North Korean women sold into prostitution were between the ages of 15 and 25, many of them being sold into marriages, abused, exploited and forced to live as slaves to their Chinese “husbands.” A few groups and Christian missionaries have tried to rescue them, but the report says many victims end tragically, even dying.
It should be noted that “the South Korean government and international community will not undertake to provide physical protection for North Korean refugees in China.” According to the report, the annual turnover from exploiting North Korean women in China’s underground market is estimated at $105 million USD (126.3 billion won). North Korean refugee women are prostituted for 30 yuan (about 5,000 won ($4 USD)) and are subjected to forced marriage into Chinese families for 1,000 yuan (about 170,000 won ($140 USD)). KFI has been working for North Korean human rights since 2009 as a non-profit organization to rescue North Korean refugees at risk. They publish reports on North Korean human rights abuses.
While Foreign media do cover these stories, none of the domestic media do.
None of these stories has been covered by domestic media even though foreign media have reported on them repeatedly. Furthermore, the South Korean government has never issued a statement on the human rights issues of North Korean women who have been trafficked and sold into sex slavery in China.
Yong-hwa Kim, head of the North Korean Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea, said in an interview on August 20, “The Korean government still tends to have a colonial diplomacy toward China. Meanwhile, North Korean girls in their late teens are still being sold into China. These children number least 45,000. Sung-ok Han, who was found dead from starvation with her son, was one of these. She was trafficked in her early 20s.”
The average payment for human trafficking among Chinese brokers mentioned by Kim differs somewhat from KFI’s report. According to Kim, traffickers charge 2.5 million won (about $2,097 USD) for a woman in her 20s and 2 million won (about $1,678 USD) if she is in her 30s, depending upon her looks. Unsuspecting victims are sold into sex slavery, then kept naked 24 hours a day, constantly viewed by web cameras, and exploited by men.
“I have rescued many such naked and drugged North Korean women, covering them with my own clothes. Could anything be more miserable? Most of the victims are under the control of local gangsters. They reported that the gangs regularly injected them with drugs to keep them from running away. Kim said he had had several failures when trying to rescue drug-addicted North Korean women. In the past, he has asked for the South Korean government for help, but the government refused, saying “They (North Korean women in China) are not citizens of South Korea.”
The problem is, this situation cannot be viewed simply as the violation of human rights against North Koreans in China. Most of the women will reach the South eventually, and these female North Korean refugees, victims of human trafficking, usually receive no treatment for any of the illnesses they contract while in China. So after all, these problems become our problems.
Professor Dong-wan Kang, who was head of the Busan Hana Center until December last year, met with 100 North Korean women in China to conduct one-on-one in-depth interviews. From these interviews, he published a book titled [Mom’s Mom]. Professor Kang wrote in the book, “Shining a light on the lives of North Korean refugee women living in China will be meaningful because it can provide basic knowledge needed for helping the stable settlement of North Korean refugee women in South Korea.” Professor Kang explained that the cultural background of North Korean defectors in Korea is an amalgam of life in both North Korea and China. Without considering what happens to them in China, we cannot understand their struggles in South Korea.
Interview with 100 female defectors <Mom’s Mom>
The in-depth interviews took place in China over a period of about nine months, from September 2016 to May 2017. Thirteen of the North Korean female defectors interviewed were in their teens, 57 were in their 20s, 27 were in their 30s, and 3 were in their 40s, with the majority being in their 20s.
The interviews revealed that the length of their stays in China ranged from 1 to 5 years (9 people), 6 to 10 years (19 people), 11 to 15 years (46 people), 16 to 20 years (25 people), and over 21 years (1 person). Looking into their occupations, there were 35 blue-collar workers, 31 merchants, 18 farm workers, 6 teachers, 4 students, 3 art workers, 2 soldiers and 1 doctor. All of them married and gave birth in China, except for eight who were unable to have children. The number of women with one child was 45, while 40 had two children, and 7 had three children. Many of them were trafficked and sold and resold several times in China. Some of the women had borne each of their children from different biological fathers. Also, 77 of them said that they had been forced to defect from North Korea, while 23 said they had defected of their own free will.
Professor Kang insisted that “Although some said they had defected of their own will, I doubt that their choices were really voluntary, since China was the only option open to them.” In 2003, a 19-year-old North Korean defector starved her own child to death in North Korea. The cost of an abortion is nearly equal to a month’s food. Children are born and allowed to die because their parents cannot afford the extra food. This woman said, “My father told me, ‘If you become malnourished, there’s no one to support the family, so do not breast feed the baby.” In an interview with Professor Kang she said, “My baby cried for three days. After that, the baby didn’t even have the strength to cry and finally starved to death.” She went to China and stayed for 13 years ago to support the rest of her family and found that she could neither reach the South nor go back to North Korea. A victim of Chinese human trafficking, she was sold for 16,000 Yuan (about $2,240 USD).
The dreams of North Korean escapees to have a better life must not be allowed to end so tragically. These people cross the border hoping to support their families by selling goods between the North and China for a profit. Or they dream of entering South Korea for freedom. Most of them, however, barely manage to eke out an existence once they become victims of human traffickers.
“A North Korean woman living in xxxxx is 19 years old now. She was trafficked when she was 14 and had a baby at 15. She had a second child at 17 and a third at 19. Only then, with three children, did her Chinese husband finally remove the manacle from her leg. She fled to South Korea.
“Can you imagine the pain these women have been through? They are human beings; they are also Koreans. But our government doesn’t even try to investigate this situation. Why?”