TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor
North Korea has been under the rule of an authoritarian regime for several decades. This much, at least, most people know.
But what most people in the West either do not know or are only vaguely aware of is that there are human rights abuses taking place in North Korea on a daily basis.
North Korea exists almost entirely isolated from the international community, with few people leaving or entering the country and virtually no media moving between the two. It is partially due to this, and partially to the fact that the Canadian and American governments have not made it an issue of much import, that few Canadians can claim a comprehensive understanding of the issues at hand.
According to the Human Rights Watch website on North Korea, “There is still no organized political opposition, independent labor union, free media or civil society. Arbitrary arrests, detention and lack of due process are the norm.”
There are also other symptoms of the government’s total disregard for human rights, ones that are less often cited. Women are not allowed to wear pants or to ride bicycles because it is “not becoming,” which impedes their ability to get from home to work. In a country where most men are forced into severely underpaid factory jobs, women often need to work in order to stave off starvation for an entire family.
Liberty in North Korea is a non-profit international organization that was organized in 2004 with the goals of raising awareness of the problems in North Korea among the general population and of forcing Western governments to do something about the problem.
LiNK’s website estimates that there are 200,000 North Koreans imprisoned in political concentration camps because they or a member of their family has been suspected of being disloyal to the government.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 North Koreans are forced into labour outside their home country as well. Russia, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China are among the countries that have labour contracts with North Korea employing this type of labour.
“We want our government to put pressure on China,” said a member of the Saskatoon chapter of LiNK who goes by the name Eunhye.
“When people escape North Korea they usually get to China, but they don’t give North Koreans refugee status (in China).”
Eunhye says she and her fellow activists use pseudonyms when engaged in work with LiNK to make it more difficult for authorities to associate their real identities with this work. If any of them were to go to North Korea, having used a pseudonym will make it more difficult for North Korean officials to find this out.
But because getting into North Korea for any reason, let alone for humanitarian work, is so difficult, Eunhye says LiNK’s focus is more on helping those who manage to get out on their own. LiNK maintains a network of safe houses in China and Southeast Asia for North Koreans to stay after they escape.
According to LiNK’s website, “Refugees are rounded up regularly and repatriated (from China) to North Korea, where they are severely punished and tortured in prison camps, and sometimes executed.”
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photo: Flickr