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Written Testimony of Suzanne Scholte for Submission May 1, 2009
I am deeply grateful to Charlotte Oldham Moore and Toy Reid for organizing this Roundtable as part of North Korea Freedom Week and to give me the opportunity to talk about the North Korean refugees in China.
The Situation
North Korean refugees began crossing over the border into China when famine struck in the 1990s. This problem was of such concern to Kim Jong-il that through their government broadcasting they warned North Koreans not to go to China explaining that China was experiencing a civil war and although conditions in North Korea were difficult, they were much worse in China. Those early refugees who crossed the border were shocked when they got to China: it was a “paradise” -- people had electricity, cars, and most importantly, food. News spread and soon at least 500,000 North Koreans were estimated to have crossed the border to feed their starving families back home.
China signed an agreement with the DPRK to arrest these refugees and force them back to North Korea. Under international law, the moment a North Korean defector crosses the border they meet the definition of an asylum seeker because it is a criminal offense, punishable by death, for a North Korean to leave their country without permission. China is obligated not to repatriate them as a signatory to the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees and its 1969 Protocol. Every North Korean who is forced back to North Korea by China is tortured and imprisoned, and those who are found to have crossed more than once or been in contact with Christians can be publicly executed.
Furthermore, China established a policy to fine and jail their own citizens as well as humanitarian workers who provide food and shelter to the refugees. Steve Kim of Huntington New York was jailed for four years because he was caught rescuing North Koreans. The two Chinese citizens who were working with him were given two year sentences for buying tickets and giving rides to these refugees.
By refusing to abide by its international agreements and jailing humanitarians who try to help North Korean refugees, China is directly responsible for creating a horrific human rights crisis: Over 80% of North Korean females have been victims of trafficking, while men are treated as slave laborers.
Contributing to this situation is the shortage of women in China resulting from China’s one child policy. North Korean females are in demand and human traffickers are luring them into China with the promise of jobs. I have with me two women who are examples of what thousands of North Korean women are facing. I will submit their full testimony but would like to briefly tell their stories:
Mrs. KIM Young Ae’s husband died in an accident when she, her son and parents were already at the brink of starvation. Lured to China by a trafficker who promised her a job as a nanny, she crossed the Yalu River, only to be met on the other side by a trafficker who took her to Lianoning Province to be sold to a mentally unstable Chinese pig farmer for (5000 yuan) $733. According to Mrs. Kim, “I had to live a life of hell, for he threatened that he would hand me over to the Chinese police if I said or did anything that displeased him.” Mrs. Kim gave birth to a daughter which gave her the only comfort she knew as she worked as a slave laborer by day and was beaten and abused at night by her so called husband who kicked her so hard he damaged her teeth. One day her daughter, while under the care of her mother in law, drowned in a stream in front of the house. Her daughter had not yet even learned to walk. Mrs. Kim, filled with guilt, fled in the night only to be caught again by a human-trafficking gang who sold her to a farmer in a rural village in Henan province. The farmer told Mrs. Kim he had bought her for (8000 yuan) $1100. Unable to speak the language or adjust to the food, she suffered serious medical problems and ended up begging the trafficker who had sold her to take her away. Of course, he was glad to do this and he sold her again to a handicapped man. She finally escaped to South Korea in 2007.
Mrs. BANG Mi Sun’s husband starved to death during the famine. Afraid that the rest of her family might starve, she and her son and daughter crossed the Tumen River in June, 2002. She said, “I thought I would be able to feed my children once I got to China, but what was really waiting for us was the possibility of arrest and forced return to North Korea by the Chinese police. Just as I was ready to do anything that would guarantee my children’s safety, a Chinese trafficker appeared and began to threaten me using my children’s vulnerability. In the end, I was sold for (4,000 yuan) $586, and taken to a place called Hualong. The Chinese brokers called us North Korean women ‘pigs’.”
There were many North Korean woman with Mrs. Bang and she was sold first as “the best pig.” The person who bought her then sold her to his relative in Shandong. Her new husband was 15 years her senior and treated her as a beast of burden constantly stressing how he had bought her for the enormous sum of (7000 yuan) $1025. While the man who bought her was out of the house, a group of people stormed in and took her to be sold again. In addition to the traffickers, there are also vicious brokers who steal North Korean women only to resell them. This time she was sold to a man over 10 years younger than she – he was 34 and she was 48 – and he demanded that she bear him a child. When he found out that she had a contraceptive device, he brought in an obstetrician and had the members of his family hold her down while the obstetrician brutally tore the contraceptive device out of her body. This caused her to be bedridden for a month.
She fled the house but soon was arrested by the Chinese police and forced back to North Korea, to a labor camp in Musan, where she was forced to do intensive physical activity. When she fell in exhaustion, they beat her with a bludgeon on her leg permanently disabling her. After the labor camp she was sent to a detention facility where she witnessed the guards force a pregnant North Korean to lose her baby by putting a plank on her belly and forcing other inmates to stand on it. Then, Mrs. Bang was sent to a political prison camp where she witnessed the terrible suffering of other North Koreans.
All of this because she wanted to feed her children.
The stories of these two women are typical of what is happening right now in China and right now North Koreans are facing a tragedy the seems to never end: starvation in North Korea leading them to flee to China, abuse and inhumane treatment in China, and then punishment and torture when China forces them back to North Korea.
Why Does China Have This Policy?
How can Hu Jintao continue to placate Kim Jong-il with this repatriation policy? Kim Jong-il has shown his racist contempt for the Chinese people, because he has ordered his border guards to force North Korean women to abort their babies because they are half-Chinese.
The Chinese Government and even U.S. policy makers have an unfounded fear that if China showed compassion to the refugees: China would be flooded with refugees which could lead to the collapse of the North Korean regime. If fleeing refugees could lead to the collapse of the regime, it would have happened by now. After 500,000 crossed the border and 3 million people died, Kim Jong-il’s grip on power never faltered. This fear is not only unfounded, but is prolonging the suffering. Refugees are leaving Kim Jong-il, not North Korea, because they are hungry and repressed. Nearly every defector I have met in working on this issue for 13 years has told me they want to go back to North Korea once conditions improve in North Korea. If China allowed refugees safe passage, this would create pressure on Kim Jong-il to reform, something that is also in China’s best interest. When reform comes to North Korea, conditions will improve and China will no longer have to deal with this refugee problem.
The Solutions To solve this crisis:
1) China Should Allow them safe passage: Unlike any refugee crisis in the world, the North Koreans have a place to go as they are citizens of South Korea, under Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic of Korea Constitution. Furthermore, the United States as well as other countries have shown a willingness to accept these refugees for resettlement. There is no reason for China to force them back to torture, imprisonment and death.
2) Let the United Nations High Commission for Refugees do their job – they have an office in Beijing, but China prevents them from having access to the refugees and arrests North Koreans who try to approach their offices.
3) Work with the humanitarian community including the many Chinese citizens who feed, shelter, and help North Korean refugees escape to other countries despite the threat of imprisonment and fines. Imagine if China worked with this community – rather than jailing them – as they are helping China resolve this crisis by assisting these refugees to find resettlement in other countries. The North Korea Human Rights Act in fact recommended that $20 million be allocated to help North Korean refugees. But NGOs involved in the underground railroad cannot use these funds because the U.S. government requires that the NGOs have permission of the host country – which China will not allow.
4) The United States, South Korea, Japan and other countries in the region should establish a First Asylum policy for North Korea refugees, as was done to save the Vietnamese boat people.
These countries should also encourage Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, to provide temporary asylum to these refugees, not to punish them. In Thailand, for example, North Koreans are forced to serve a detention sentence because of entering the country illegally before they can pursue resettlement.
CONCLUSION
In February, I met Mrs. Ko Mae Hwa who had fled to China with her 16 year old daughter. While they were separated, her daughter was caught by Chinese police and forced back to North Korea where she was beaten to death by North Korean border guards. It is hard to imagine that people could beat a16 year old girl to death who was simply trying to find her mother.
As Mrs Bang has said, “I realized that there was a world where human beings were bought and sold and that people could show such cruelty and shamelessness. If someone does not wipe their tears, heal their wounds and help them regain their human dignity, female refugees will continue to be sold like pigs in China. They will never know life’s happiness.”
How long can we allow this barbaric situation to continue especially when all the solutions are right at hand? Thank you for this opportunity to address this issue.
Testimonies by North Korean Defectors Who Were Victims of Trafficking in China for Submission to the Congressional- Executive Commission on China’s Roundtable May 1, 2009 (as part of Scholte’s testimony)
Testimony of KIM Young Ae
My name is Kim Young-Ae, and I entered the Republic of Korea on December 24, 2007. To me, who had left home and led a life of hide-and-seek in order to survive, arriving in the Republic of Korea felt like returning to parents’ bosom. The government warmed our chilled hearts by providing us with a house and many other benefits.
One day, when I was living as a member of a family working for a military factory in Chagangdo, my husband died in an accident where he was crushed by a tree trunk while gathering sticks for starting a fire. As my family hadn’t been far from starvation even before the accident, I left my son to my parents and entered China; I only wanted to make any money I can to support the family I left behind.
I didn’t know even in my wildest dream that the person who persuaded me into going to China and guided me to the Yalu River was a broker specializing in human trafficking. Even as I was drifting in the harsh current of the Yalu River, I thought of my son and thought that I had to survive no matter what.
Once I crossed the river, a broker who had been waiting for me took me to Liaoning Province. He told me that I was sold at 5,000 yuan and that my would-be husband was the youngest sibling with an older brother and sister. The guy had not been able to marry because of a certain mental disease and finally decided to marry a North Korean woman who could be bought with money.
I had to live a life of hell, for he threatened me that he would hand me over to the Chinese police if I said or did anything that displeased him. And it was then I gave birth to my daughter. But my so-called husband would gamble all day, and he hit me and subjected me to a subhuman existence whenever he was drunk.
While I farmed and raised pigs while carrying my child on my back, my so-called husband gambled away the money his parents had been saving for purchasing pesticide and fertilizer. Therefore I had to work even harder, doing labor such as carrying human manure.
I would work on the farm throughout the day, and even during lunch I had to go out to the field to gather grass feeds for the pigs; I couldn’t sit for a moment but had to spin like a top. My gambling husband would kick me when the child cried and upset the dinner table when he didn’t like my cooking.
Even though his kicking damaged my front teeth and made my gums bleed, for several years I had to just endure the pain because the family denied me any medical and dental treatment. It was only after I arrived in South Korea that I received proper dental treatment.
I threw myself into farming and raising and selling pigs, but in the end moneylenders swarmed into the house and took away our property by heaps. We were always in poverty and had to live in darkness because we couldn’t pay for electricity that only cost 5 yuan.
Then one day, my daughter who hadn’t yet learned how to walk drowned in a stream in front of the house. While I was working all day in the kitchen to prepare for my father-in-law’s birthday, the mother-in-law who had promised to take care of my daughter ended up neglecting her.
Feeling guilty over not being able to protect my daughter who had been my sole comfort, and seeing myself forced to live like a beast in a foreign land due to my country’s poverty, I lamented my fate and cried and cried. I wanted to escape this miserable situation as soon as possible. When it became unbearable, I ran away from the house in the deep night.
But I was caught again by a human-trafficking gang and was sold to a rural village in Henan Province. This time my would-be husband was a Han Chinese who had a divorce experience. He told me he bought me at 8,000 yuan.
Because the village was only populated by Han Chinese people, I could neither communicate nor eat well. I couldn’t adapt to the new environment; a rash broke out over my whole body, and I was endlessly tortured by all sorts of small diseases like colitis. I was soon on my knees and begged to the broker who had sold me to take me away.
So I was sold for the third time, and until entering South Korea, I was married to a handicapped Chinese man. His parents were also handicapped people, and my life with them was just as difficult as before.
Leaving behind so many stories and so much heartbreak, I finally entered the Republic of Korea in December 2007.
And now, I stand here to tell the world about the human rights status of numerous female North Korean refugees who bear heart-wrenching stories like I do. While growing up, I heard my parents preaching on chastity and morals until my ears were stuffed. I still tremble with anger at the fact that I, who cherished the idea of a single lasting marriage, had to be sold not once or twice but several times. To the people who sold me, to those who treated me like a slave, and to the North Korean authority, I want to return all the despicable treatments of the days during which I led a nameless existence and could not protest for once in the fear of being handed over to the Chinese police. And I want to cry out loud that our conscience must act for the sake of female North Korean refugees living miserably in China and other countries even at this moment. Lastly, I want to pay respect to Suzanne Scholte and all the relevant people of the “Free North Korea Week” event who are working day and night for us female North Korean refugees. Thank you.
Kim Young-Ae
Testimony of Bang Mi Sun
My name is Bang Mi Sun, and I entered the Republic of Korea on January 8, 2004. Arriving in the ROK after living in hell-like North Korea, I feel like I have found heaven. Even though my residence is a 17-pyeong-size (603 Square Feet) rental apartment house, it is like a palace compared to the one I had in North Korea. I also don’t have to worry about eating and gathering sticks for fire – if such a place is not heaven, what is?
Before I escaped North Korea, I lived in Musan-gun, Hamgyeongbuk-do. My husband, who was a miner, died of starvation during the so-called “March of Hardship” period. Worse still, my first daughter who was living as a dance actress in Pyongyang disappeared, putting me under a tremendous economic and psychological stress. Thinking that the rest of the family might starve to death or scatter, in the June of 2002 I crossed the Tumen River and entered China with my son and second daughter.
I had thought I would be able to feed my children once I got to China, but what was really waiting us was the possibility of arrest and forced return to North Korea by the Chinese police. Just as I was ready to do anything that would guarantee my children’s safety, a Chinese broker appeared and began to threaten me using my children’s insecurity. In the end, I was sold at 4,000 yuan and taken to a place called Hualong.
The Chinese brokers called us North Korean women “pigs.” There were many other North Korean women with me, but I ended up being sold first as “the best pig.” Once I arrived in Hualong, the person who was said to have bought me at 4,000 yuan sold me at a higher price to his relative in Shandong.
The new “husband” I met in the foreign Chinese land didn’t speak the same language, had handicapped legs, and was an old man 15 years senior to me. From the first day, he treated me as if I were a beast of burden, stressing how he spent an “enormous sum” of 7,000 yuan which he earned through a year of farming. I lived with him for a time, and then one day, while my “husband” was out on the farm, a group of frighteningly looking people stormed into my “house” and took me to a place I didn’t know.
I learned later that they were vicious brokers who would “steal” and sell North Korean women like me. Thus, only several months after I entered China, I was fated to be sold like a livestock for the third time. I realized for the first time in my life that there was a world where human beings were bought and sold and that people could show such cruelty and shamelessness. I was also filled with chagrin as I saw no reason why we North Korean women should be subjected to such inhuman treatments.
There at the place to which I was sold was a 34-year-old man who was living with his parents. My age at the time was 48, so this time I was to live with a man who was more than 10 years younger than me. It was difficult to put up with such a young person acting my husband and bossing me around, and he even forced me to change my age to 38. He hit me and yelled at me whenever he felt like it, and one day he demanded that I give birth to a child.
Having a child at 48 was preposterous, but his response to my protest was even more so. When I said I could not have a child because there was a “ring” (a type of North Korean contraceptive) installed in my womb, he yelled that one could simply “pull out whatever that thing called ‘ring.’”
Then, after discussing the matter with his older sister and relatives who were living in the same neighborhood, he finally brought in an obstetrician to the house. Without any medical setting prepared, they pressed me down to the floor and spread and pulled each one of my arms and legs. Then the so-called doctor rolled up his sleeves and began to pull out with brute force the ring that was put into my body after I had my last son in North Korea.
Because I bled too much, I couldn’t stand up for several days. I caught a high fever, so for a month I just stayed lying on the floor. Being ill, I repeatedly asked myself why I fell into such a situation, why I had to be floor-ridden so pathetically. I felt victimized, angry, and sad. What was most frustrating was that I had nowhere to plead my grievous situation. In those days I could just cry.
Then I finally found an opportunity and escaped to Yanbian. Even though I was determined to live together with my children no matter what, there was no way to find them in such a huge country as China. Then one day, I was arrested by the Chinese police during an identity inspection and was dragged back to North Korea.
The place I was first taken to was a labor training camp in Musan-gun, Hamgyeongbuk-do. They rounded up about forty people, made us do squats roughly hundred times, and after that ordered us to run around exactly hundred times a yard as big as a soccer field. People, ranging from the twenties to the sixties, all ran in one row, and I thought I would die from lack of breath. In the end I fell down. Then someone rushed over, and he kicked me and hit me with a bludgeon. One of the spots that got hit swelled red and after several days developed into osteomyelitis. Due to the damage I received from the incident, I cannot walk properly even now.
After a period, I was taken to a detention facility ran by Musan-gun’s security department. In that place, people who had been arrested in China were divided into groups of 30 ~ 40, and each group was assigned one room; living with tens of people in a space less than 5 pyeong nearly suffocated me to death. The detainees received a group punishment even for a most slight movement, and in extreme cases they were ordered to hit one another. One day, a woman who was said to have become pregnant in China was taken into the place. Before our eyes, the guards placed a plank on her belly and made two detainees stand on it. I could not bear to see straight the faces of the guards who were doing such an inhuman act. After learning that in the end the baby was miscarried and the mother dead, I was taken to Hamheung’s re-education facility.
After I dragged my damaged leg to the re-education facility, I witnessed many new terrible things in that place. How can I adequately express the sight of detainees who gave up being human and would even eat insects to sustain their lives? When one found a snake or a frog while picking up stones in a field, one would stuff the animal into one’s mouth alive; when people found a tiny piece of radish in a bathroom dung pile, they would even eat that after rubbing it carelessly against their sleeves… The miserable sight of people who thought themselves lucky while eating grains of bean and ears of corn found in cow poop – this sight has given me endless nightmares until now.
I lived like a beast just as they did, for I was determined to meet my children. I endured the terrible reality thinking the faces of my children who might be searching for their mom somewhere in China, and a year and three months later, I, verging on death, was released from the prison at last.
Nobody welcomed me when I returned to my home village. My house was gone, so I went to my in-law’s house to stay. Several days later, to my surprise, a Chinese came looking for me and told me about my son’s recent activities. It turned out that my son had entered the Republic of Korea and had been making effort to bring his mom to the country.
Following the Chinese person, I crossed the Tumen River, entered China, and, by the help of the South Korean consulate in China, I threw myself in the arms of the Republic of Korea. I met my son and daughter, and reminiscing those days when, human as I was, I could not live like a human being, I’m trying to figure out what I should do for the rest of my life. I know that it is a type of happiness to live in a peaceful family that dreams about a better future. But thinking those North Korean women who are treated and living like beasts in China and North Korea, I cannot help but ponder about my responsibility towards them.
If someone does not wipe their tears, heal their wounds, and help them live with human dignity, female North Korean refugees will be sold around like pigs in China, and women in North Korea who are deprived of all rights will never know life’s happiness. Ignorant and unprepared as I am, I’m always trying hard to find ways to help them.
I hope that we female North Korean refugees will no longer have to be sold like livestock in China. I also hope that our North Korean brethrens won’t have to live sub-human lives in prisons and training camps in North Korea. I want to add that I’m sincerely grateful for the vigorous activities of human rights organizations in America, Mrs. Scholte, and North Korean human rights activists in general. Thank you.
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