Reports and Analyses: North Korean Refugee Crisis
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- DENIED STATUS, DENIED EDUCATION: CHILDREN OF NORTH KOREAN WOMEN IN CHINA Human Rights Watch 2008 report documenting “how children of North Korean women living in northeast China (some born in North Korea, and others born in China to Chinese fathers and North Korean mothers), are denied legal identity and access to education. It also described how China summarily arrests and deports North Korean women back to North Korea, often separating them from their children.” (Quoted from: “South Korea: Olympic Torch Spotlights China Rights Crisis”. Human Rights Watch, April 28, 2008.)
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- THE NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE CRISIS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 2006 report.
When we consider North Korea these days, our thoughts turn to the unpleasant prospect of an isolated regime, virtually owned and operated by an unusual, reclusive leader and his coterie of well-armed and determined militarists, acquiring a substantial nuclear weapons capacity, potentially selling fissile material or even nuclear weapons to terrorist groups or rogue regimes, and possibly launching a war of cataclysmic proportions by accident or by design.
Concentration on the strategic problem in the national security context is clearly warranted, yet there is another, growing dimension to the North Korean problem that poses a grave challenge: the plight of ordinary North Koreans who are denied even the most basic human rights, and the dramatic and heart-rending stories of those who risk their lives in the struggle to escape what is certainly the world’s worst nightmare, the tyranny of the Kim Jong Il regime. These refugees take the risk for various reasons, such as persecution and severe hunger, but all believe that life “on the other side” will be better, and will provide opportunities that will never come if they remain.
In many refugee situations, “escape” does mean the chance to start over, and by dint of hard work, sacrifice and keeping a vision of a brighter future, individuals can and do succeed. Successful escape from North Korea, however, can mean that the refugee may merely be trading one prison for another, as this important new study by the Committee clearly demonstrates.
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- FAILURE TO PROTECT: A CALL TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL TO ACT IN NORTH KOREA From UN launch of “A Call to the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea” in November 2006, presented by Václav Havel, Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Elie Wiesel.
Website | Report | Press Release
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- NORTH KOREA: STARVED OF RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE FOOD CRISIS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (North Korea) Amnesty International January 2004 report.
For more than a decade, the people of North Korea have suffered from famine. Hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of acute food shortages caused by natural disasters and economic mismanagement. This report examines three key issues; the famine and violations related to the right to food; other human rights violations in the context of the famine; and the responsibility of the international community.
