North Korean defectors urge China to help people fleeing hermit state
Women who escaped from North Korea say many caught in China face severe punishment after they are forcibly returned to their homeland
Three North Korean women joined activists at a panel discussion in New York with the goal of pressuring Beijing to help defectors from the reclusive state rather than sending them back to face severe punishment.
“In China, tens of thousands of North Korean women are hiding and living in fear of capture by the Chinese authorities,” said Lee So-yeon, a former soldier who fled her country in 2008 and is now a leading activist in South Korea.
Many of the women, she said, are sold to men in China with prices ranging from US$4,000 for women in their 20s to US$2,000 for those in their 40s.
“The greatest fear for women who are forced to leave is deportation to North Korea,” she said.
Those who are caught by the Chinese authorities and sent back face the prospect of punishment meted out in prison camps, correctional training centres or labour training camps.