violation of human rights in North Korea

Since World War II, the people of Korea have had to deal with much which has troubled their population. Human rights violations in the Communist country of North Korea have caught the attention of the United Nations and many human rights organizations from all over the world.


What is mostly affecting the North Korea population is famine and acute food shortages have led to many deaths which have affected the North Korean population since the middle half of the 1990s. There have been massive immigration attempts into neighboring nations of South Korea and China which has caused a stir among residents of those nations. The country of North Korea has to continue to rely on international aid to feed its 50 percent poor and blighted population which suffers from hunger and malnutrition which numbers into the millions.
North Koreans have been crossing the border into China, many in search of refuge as food security continues to be a daily struggle for one third to one half of all North Koreans.


The food shortages are inextricably linked to the regime itself, in part because food distribution favors the ruling elite and military and is tied to the government’s ongoing broader political and military motivations.


The North Koreans began experiencing a food shortage of increasing severity beginning in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting cut-off of economic benefits North Korea had received from the communist bloc. Disastrous floods in the summer of 1995 also plunged the country into a severe famine. By 2005, the WFP estimated that nearly half of North Korea’s 24 million people did not have enough to eat and that more than a third of the population was chronically malnourished.


According to a study published a year ago by the Food and Drug Agricultural Organization. Several million North Korean children suffer the effects of chronic malnutrition. Medical care also is lacking due to the inadequateness doctors, nurses and supplies.
Executions in public are carried out at places where large crowds gather. Public notices are given to schools, farms and enterprises. Families have even been present during executions of their loved ones. The executions are usually carried out by hanging or firing squad as reported by Amnesty International.


Women in the North Korea found it increasingly difficult to find daily necessities for their families and many left their homes in search of food or work, including to China. These North Korea women who cross the border into China fleeing hunger and repression in their homeland frequently fall victim to human traffickers who sell them to Chinese men in search of wives. Almost from the moment they cross the border, refugee women are tapped by marriage brokers and pimps involved in human trafficking.



According to the Polaris Project, human trafficking is “the fastest growing criminal industry in the world”. Marriage brokers provide North Korean women as wives, particularly in the rural areas where the historical preference for male babies has led over time to an acute shortage of marriage-age Chinese women. This is due to the years of the one child policy combined with centuries of disregard for girl-children leading to a literal market for women refugee.


There were no known laws specifically addressing the problem of trafficking in persons, and trafficking of women and young girls into and within China continued to be widely reported. A network of smugglers facilitated this trafficking. Many victims of trafficking, unable to speak Chinese, were held as virtual prisoners, and some were forced to work as prostitutes. Traffickers sometimes abused or physically scarred the victims to prevent them from escaping. Officials facilitated trafficking by accepting bribes to allow individuals to cross the border into China.


If a woman is able to extricate herself from the trade and return to North Korea, she is often treated as a criminal instead of a victim, in many cases being imprisoned and forced to do hard labour. If she finally returns to her village, she is treated as a social pariah, creating heightened vulnerability to re-trafficking.


Freedom of expression is not tolerated. People who have expressed ideas or other opinions contrary to that of the ruling party face extreme punishment. News media is censored and international radio broadcasts is restricted by the Communist North Korean government. Assembly and association which are not authorized will result in severe punishment. The North Korean government labels this as a "collective disturbance".

Torture and ill treatment of prisoners in the labor camps and prisons are reported by a variety of sources. The North Koreans who flea to China are often caught and returned to the North Korean government and pay a heavy price for leaving. Many of them are interrogated and beaten to a pulp. Some die do to lack of proper medical treatment due to many of the beatings and starvation.