1. Introduction
Of those North Koreans entering China, it is believed that more than 80–90 percent of the women become trafficking victims [131]
2. North Korea’s Downward Spiral and China’s Upward Surge
North Korea historically relied upon the Soviet Union’s subsidies of food, fuel, and equipment to function, as it had limited natural resources and technology. When the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea’s command economy staggered, and economic output decreased by half. In addition, Russia and China established economic and diplomatic ties with South Korea, further straining their own relations with North Korea, which relied on preferential trade relations with its two allies. Faced with increasing food shortages from lack of production capabilities and minimal support from its Cold War allies, the North Korean government systematically reduced food rations for the general population
Severe agricultural disasters between 1993 and 1995 compounded the food shortage by debilitating the already crippled agricultural sector. Continued crop failures forced thousands to forage for food as the meager food supply was reserved for the city of Pyongyang, workers in critical in dustrial complexes, and military and government officials.9 Although the North Korean government sought international assistance for food supplies in 1995, more than 2 million North Koreans died from starvation between 1995 and 1998 because supplies were either mismanaged or reserved for certain populations. 10 As a result, the famine launched an exodus of desper ate North Koreans into China to find food and work. [132]
3. Tricks of the Trade
Trafficking in persons is defined as the recruitment, transportation, or transfer of persons, accomplished by the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or the victim’s vulnerability, or giving or receiving payments to achieve control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Commercial sex and labor are extracted from North Korean women through violence, deception, coercion, abduction, fraud, debt bondage and/or abuse of power in such a manner that consent, if any is given, is not meaningful. As North Korean women migrate into China to search for work to support their families, they are vulnerable to being trafficked as brides or women for the sex industry. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of the women who cross the border are trafficked as a consequence of false promises of employment, pressure to marry for survival, abduction, or being sold by family or acquaintances.1 In the case of North Korean women, the majority of victims are either misled by the intentions of traffickers posing as benefactors, whose actual inten tions are not made clear, or are forcefully kidnapped for the purpose of being sexually exploited.
In one common form of trafficking, marriage brokers promise better lives in China to North Korean women who are willing to marry Korean-Chi nese or Chinese men. Women reluctantly agree to the arrangement because, as one victim noted, “it is better to find a man, any man, than to starve to death in North Korea.” Although it appears that the victim voluntarily accepts this marriage arrangement, the situation often devolves into traf f icking because the women end up in situations vastly different from the original agreement. They are often wed to husbands who are poor, disabled, abusive or some combination thereof. [133]
There have been reports of actual Chinese border guards and policemen pretend ing to arrest women for illegal migration but in fact selling them to traf f ickers or directly to men. Many of these women are then forced to work in the sex industry as a bar/karaoke hostess or as a prostitute in a brothel. The women are priced around 5,000 Yuan ($800); prices are often based on age, appearances and destination (for example, rural or urban areas). [134]
4. Violence, Crime and Punishment
Similar to the experiences of other trafficking victims worldwide, North Korean women are exposed to physical and psychological violence from both the traffickers and the men to whom they are sold. Of those trafficked, more than 60–70 percent experience both physical and psychological violence.342 Women are often locked up, physically abused, repeatedly raped, and emotionally manipulated by traffickers and buyers as a technique to break their spirit, shame them, and essentially mold them into complacent sex servants.353 Those who refuse to comply are often severely beaten, starved, or even killed as a warning to other women.364 North Korean women sold as brides are also subjected to severe domestic violence and are unable to escape or report the situation because of their illegal status.37 In one case, a North Korean woman was chained up whenever her Chinese husband left the house to prevent escape.38 Constant threats of exposing the women to law enforcement also allow traffickers and Chinese husbands to further control the women’s movement and subordination. Many of the women fear repatriation because of harsh consequences for them and their families back in North Korea and are reluctant to cause problems for their husbands or traffickers.
- https://reliefweb.int/report/china/north-korean-refugees-frequent-victims-human-trafficking [본문으로]
- Man-Ho Heo, “61st UNCHR Meeting in Geneva: Oral Intervention on item 12,” A Woman’s Voice International, 7 April 2005 [본문으로]
- HP Boe, “Human Trafficking as 21st Century Form of Slavery,” Free Republic, (17 January 2005) https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1322431/posts [본문으로]
- Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), 29–43 [본문으로]