Press Release

China is complicit in North Korea’s human rights abuses through forcibly repatriating the citizens who escape, and it must be held accountable, proclaimed two panels of expert witnesses at a Capitol Hill hearing today on “Protecting North Korean Refugees” by the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

    “Amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we cannot forget those suffering under the North Korean regime and those North Korean refugees who are in China,” said Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

    “North Korean asylum seekers are at imminent risk of repatriation, torture, sexual violence, forced abortions, hard labor and even execution,” Smith stated. “The Chinese government has a lot to answer for. It is no wonder that the UN Commission on Inquiry for North Korea Human Rights concluded that the Government of the People's Republic of China is aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity by forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees.” Click here to read Chairman Smith’s opening statement.

    Entitled “Protecting North Korean Refugees,” the hearing examined numerous occasions in recent decades where North Koreans fleeing the human rights abuses of the regimes of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un were trafficked in China for labor or sex, or were detained and repatriated to North Korea where they face the prospect of severe punishment by the state.

    The Administration could use policies created by Congress to hold North Korea, China and individuals and businesses within China accountable for the repatriation of North Korean refugees and the sex and labor trafficking of vulnerable refugees within China, Smith said. These actions could include sanctions under the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, the Global Magnitsky Act, or from China’s Tier 3 status under the Trafficking in Persons Report.

    “The situation facing North Korean refugees in China is worse than ever because of Xi Jinping’s illegal and inhuman repatriation policy,” Suzanne Scholte, President of the Defense Forum Foundation and Chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, stated. To read Scholte’s full testimony, click here.

    “As evidenced by their forcible repatriation, China denies many North Koreans the ability to apply for asylum or have safe passage to the Republic of Korea or other countries,” Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), stated at the hearing. “China claims that North Koreans in need of protection are illegal economic migrants. But in reality they are victims fleeing persecution, who face a wellfounded fear of persecution if forcibly returned to North Korea,” Scarlatoiu stated. To read his full testimony, click here.

    Two North Korean defectors testified at Tuesday’s hearing, and shared their own accounts of escaping the North Korean dictatorship into China, and eventually to freedom.

    Hyeona Ji, Co-chairperson of the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, said that between February 1998 and 2007, she escaped North Korea four times and was repatriated three times. For escaping the country, she was punished with torture and served time in North Korea’s horrific prison camps, where she witnessed harsh labor even for pregnant women, starvation, beatings, and forced abortions, including suffering her own forced abortion. She was separated from her family for years and has not seen her father in 19 years.

    “Right now, I miss my father terribly,” she said. “This longing is not unique. It is the longing of all North Korean defectors. The running of the recently defected North Korean soldier across the Joint Security Area represents a dash toward freedom that is the dream of 25 million North Koreans. North Korea is a terrifying prison, and it takes a miracle to survive there. But the Chinese government sends North Koreans seeking freedom back to this prison.” To read her full testimony, click here.

    Ms. Han Ga Hee, a North Korean defector testifying under an alias, said that she “was a victim of human trafficking” while in China. “When the traffickers sold me to a Chinese man, and threatened me with a knife as I resisted, I still could have hope and survive to get to the land of freedom, and I believe it was because I would not worship and pledge my allegiance to the Kim Regime in North Korea and sought my freedom in God,” she said. To read her full testimony, click here.

    “I sincerely hope that the US government and US Congress can help North Korean defector organizations, who are at the frontier of sending in information to North Korea, and who are working vigorously in order to bring freedom to North Koreans and end the oppression they live under because of the Kim dictatorship,” she said.

    The U.S. must do more to help protect vulnerable North Korean refugees, other witnesses stated.

    “Indications of Congressional support for these refugees—such as through the reauthorization of the North Korea Human Rights Act—are important, and I urge approval of that legislation. It has already been adopted by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate,” Ambassador Robert R. King, Senior Advisor to the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the former U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights Issues, stated. To read King’s full testimony, click here.

    The hearing also featured discussion of the U.S. helping to promote the influx of outside information into North Korea, via radio broadcast and other media.

    “Efforts to get information into North Korea must be expanded dramatically,” Smith said. “Washington should be leading this covert effort, working primarily with North Korea defectors groups in South Korea and with other human rights organizations.”