New poll paints grim picture of North Korean refugees in China
03.11.2006, 17:13
Rare interviews of North Korean refugees hiding in China paint a grim picture of the terrors and deprivations they fled from and the dangers of their new underground existence, according to a report.
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The refugees related tales of abuse in China by employers, brokers, and individuals engaged in trafficking, including women as prostitutes or brides, said the report by the US Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea
Three quarters of the 1,346 refugees polled along the Chinese-South Korean border said that the food shortage problem in reclusive, nuclear-armed North Korea had not improved and most felt that aid was diverted to the military.
"Most surprising, five out of six respondents said that North Koreans are voicing their concerns about the chronic food shortages -- a very large number given the repressiveness of the regime," said the report.
Nearly 10 percent of the respondents reported having been incarcerated in the North Korean gulag, where they attest to witnessing beatings, hunger, and infanticide.
The survey highlighted multiple sources of vulnerability in the North Korean refugee community in China, where tens of thousands fled due to famine, food shortages and political repression in North Korea.
"North Korean refugees in China face a particular set of vulnerabilities that range from their insecure legal and personal status, fears of deportation, and difficulties in securing livelihoods, said Yoonok Chang, a South Korean human rights researcher who led the survey.
"Whatever disagreements there may be over the ultimate resolution of the refugee problem, there should be no disagreements that they constitute a highly vulnerable population living in fear of arrest and deportation to punishment in the country of their birth," Chang said.
The study conducted from August 2004 to September 2005 "is unique because it also considered the psychological state of the refugees," Marcus Noland, a North Korea expert who co-edited the report told a news conference.
"Their symptoms are not unlike post-traumatic stress disorder," said Noland of the Washington-based Institute for International Economics.
The study accused China of being "inhospitable" to the refugees in many ways, including detention, allowing forced repatriation, and turning a blind eye to trafficking in women.
It urged
South Korea, Japan and the United States to help China establish temporary resettlement camps together with third-country commitments to accept the refugees for permanent resettlement.
"Chinese policy should move on two tracks: upholding its international obligations with respect to North Korean refugees; and continuing its preferred strategy of political and economic engagement with North Korea with respect to the broader security issues on the peninsula," said Jana Mason, a lawyer who works on refugee issues in Asia.
The majority (64 percent) of the North Korean refugees in China want to settle in South Korea, where they are citizens under the South Korean constitution.
But the report said South Korea had become less welcoming because of concerns about destabilizing North Korea and the increasing costs associated with assimilating the poorer, less educated immigrants.
The study said that the refugee problem is only "the tip of the iceberg" of repressive conditions within North Korea.
"It is North Korean government policy -- political repression and the denial of the most basic human rights, including the criminalization of exit -- that creates the refugee problem," said Debra Liang-Fenton, executive director of the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.