Forced repatriation: Accountability
Kim Jong-un with Xi Jinping. (Pantid123, Courtesy of Shutterstock, Inc.)
The last of our four-part series on the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors in China. For parts one, two, and three, see here, here and here.
The influx into China of North Koreans escaping famine in the 1990s led the Chinese government to introduce its infamous policy of forced repatriation.
As we have seen in this series, this has led to three decades of untold harm.
Victims sent back face torture, hard labor, prison, forced abortions, infanticide and execution. The policy has also spawned human trafficking, sexual violence, and labor exploitation within China. Not to mention the question of the motherless Chinese-born children left behind.
For all these reasons, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry into human rights in North Korea (COI) recommended in its landmark 2014 report that the global community be made aware of the fate suffered by repatriated North Koreans and that Kim Jong-un be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Sadly, nothing has changed. The continued occurrence of forced repatriation underscores the need for stronger international accountability to stop it and prevent the harm it causes.
This requires the objective collection of data about the extent of the abuse. It also requires clear identification of the perpetrators. If they are not held accountable and punished, the abuse will simply continue.
The COI was the first-ever such investigation into North Korea’s human rights issues at such a level. Its report confirmed that the regime perpetrates “widespread and systematic crimes” against humanity. With regard to escapees forcibly returned from China, it also identified the extent of abuse and who was responsible.
It found that those caught trying to escape and those forcibly returned were subjected to long-term and arbitrary detention. Women faced sexual violence. Pregnant women were usually subjected to forced abortions, and infants born to repatriated women killed. It further noted that citizens who had been in contact with South Koreans or Christians in China disappeared into the gulag. In some instances, they were executed.
The report criticized the Chinese government for treating victims as economic and illegal migrants and not as refugees fleeing persecution with a right to international protection. By forcibly repatriating them, China violated its obligation to adhere to international refugee and human rights laws, the report said.
For the last decade it has been plain for all to see that the Chinese government bears some responsibility for the human rights abuses suffered by defectors.
China is a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which says that nobody should be returned to a country where they fear persecution, and to the Convention against Torture, which prohibits expelling, returning or extraditing people when there is a substantial reason to fear they will be at risk of torture.
The international community expects the Chinese government to uphold its commitments based on these agreements. However, Beijing continues to evade responsibility, arguing the North Koreans are illegal aliens and that there is no evidence of torture in North Korea.
It chooses instead to further strengthen ties, as indicated by the visit this month of Zhao Leji to Pyongyang. Zhao is the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the third-ranking member of the ruling Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
The international community should hold China accountable as both a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. We should recall the campaign in October by parliamentarians from 15 countries who called on member states to leave the ballots blank at the U.N. human rights council to signal disapproval of China over its treatment of its Uighur minority. In the same month, North Korean human rights organizations held a similar protest against China at the U.N. over forced repatriations.
These campaigners should join forces and collectively pressure the Chinese government.
At the same time, there needs to be sustained pressure on North Korea that includes the possibility of bringing Kim Jong-un before the ICC.
In an indication that there is will to do this, the European Union and other countries last month requested that the U.N. mark the release of COI report on human rights in North Korea by producing an update.
Eun-ju is a North Korean defector and the author of "A Thousand Miles to Freedom." She currently works as a social cooperation officer and researcher at the EUM Research Institute, contributing regularly to research on North Korea and defectors. Eun-ju holds a master’s degree in sociology from Korea University.
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- Forced repatriation: Accountability - April 17, 2024
- Forced repatriation: Sent back to hell - April 9, 2024