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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| NKoreans treated as 'livestock,' women tell US |
| 2009-04-30 |
| North Korean women who escaped the sex trade in China have appealed for global action, saying the Chinese treat them like "livestock" and they face brutal treatment if they return home. The women traveled to Washington as part of a week of activism to raise attention about human rights abuses in North Korea, which is embroiled in a standoff with the United States over its nuclear and missile programs. Bang Mi-Sun, who was an actress with a propaganda troupe in her impoverished homeland, said she fled to China with her two children after her husband, a miner, starved to death in 2002. She said a broker sold her for 4,000 yuan (585 dollars) to an older disabled man, the first of a number of Chinese "husbands." "The Chinese would even refer to North Korean women as pigs. We are forced to do farmwork and household chores by day and at night we were subjected to subhuman experiences," she said tearfully at a news conference. "The world needs to know what is happening. If I had a chance to meet President Obama, I would tell him that North Korean women are being sold like livestock in China," said Bang, who escaped to South Korea in 2004. China, fearful of a long-term economic burden or shift in ethnic makeup, considers North Korean defectors to be economic migrants and routinely deports them. Bang said Chinese authorities sent her to North Korea when she was trying to find her children. Back home, she was put in a political re-education camp, where she said she had to do 100 squats, then run 100 times around a soccer field before undergoing intense beatings. Bang, who walks with such a limp she is considered disabled in South Korea, stood on the table of the news conference and lifted her skirt to reveal bruises and gaping contortions on her thigh. She said she also witnessed brutal treatment of other prisoners, including forced abortions on women returning from China. In one incident, she said she saw guards put a plank on a pregnant woman's belly and force two male prisoners to stand on it; both the woman and the baby died. Bang was joined in Washington by Kim Young-Ae, also now in South Korea, who said she was forced to marry three men in China including one who was mentally unstable and abused her. "This was a very difficult part of my life, but I want to let the world know what is happening," she said. The women appeared for the launch of a report of the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which urged China to end forced repatriations and at least consider refugee status for North Koreans who enter. A separate survey released Wednesday found that only 14 percent of North Korean defectors hoped to live in China, owing to their precarious legal status there. An overwhelming 64 percent hoped to move to South Korea while 19 percent wanted to go to the United States, despite the relentless anti-US propaganda in North Korea. The survey, led by scholar Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, surveyed 1,300 North Koreans in China and 300 others in South Korea. "The Chinese have concerns that the influx of North Koreans will upset the ethnic balance in their border provinces," Noland told a news conference earlier Wednesday. While calling the concerns overblown, Noland said the best response would be for the United Nations or another group of nations to offer to set up resettlement camps in border regions. "That way China can get them off their hands and it's just a question of how many go to South Korea, how many go to the United States and other places," Noland said. Estimates vary widely but around 100,000 North Koreans were thought to be hiding out in China in recent years. The US State Department saluted North Korean refugees for sharing their stories. "These brave souls help us all remember the importance of improving the human rights situation of the North Korean people," State Department spokesman Robert Woods said. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #2 Anyone interested in this, read the book Jia- about a North Korean who flees to China. Aquariums of Pyongyang is also a good one. |
| Posted by: bgrebel 2009-04-30 02:12 |
| #1 Not just ethnic balance but also AGRICULTURE/FOOD BALANCE as Chin engages in vital agri-production contracts wid nations in CENTRAL ASIA DUE TO LACK OF ARABLE FRAMLANDS - by its own calc this latter dependency is expected to INCREASE OVER TIME, NOT DECREASE REGARDLESS OF CHIN LEVEL OF NATIONAL MODERNIZATION. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-04-30 01:46 |