The Parliamentary debate that features in CSW's North Korea campaign film was a "Westminster Hall debate", where MPs gather to discuss issues of special interest.
Bored already?
Don't be – these debates help to form the UK government's priorities.
A Westminster Hall debate can be tabled by an individual MP on any pressing issue. It could be anything from landmines to council tax, but this time the debate centred on North Korea, and was tabled by Fiona Bruce MP. The catalyst for her action was being moved by the shocking story of a North Korean visitor.
Earlier, in a CSW-organised Parliamentary event in October 2011, a North Korean defector had told his story about life in the brutal prison camp where he was born and raised. He explained how he and his fellow prisoners were made to watch public executions and how his finger was cut off as punishment for a minor "offence". The "defector" in question – a common term for those who escape – was Shin Dong-Hyuk.
Accounts from defectors like Shin help us to get a more complete picture of life inside North Korea. Their stories paint a picture of daily life for the estimated 200,000 prisoners in North Korea's prison camps, of which it is estimated around a quarter are thought to be imprisoned for religious reasons.
Shin's UK speaking visit included a wide range of CSW-organised Parliamentary and academic events. His story shocked students, academics, Parliamentarians ... and in a crowded Parliamentary meeting room one evening in October 2011, his story spurred Fiona Bruce MP to action.
"After hearing his story, I was moved to compassion for the North Korean people." Fiona Bruce MP
She was motivated to table a Westminster Hall Debate in January this year to facilitate MPs' discussions over action on the desperate human rights situation in North Korea. With Parliament's concerns historically focused more on the nuclear and military threat of North Korea, one MP highlighted the neglect of its human rights situation in public discussion. North Korea's nuclear capacity was taking up more Parliamentary minutes than the starvation and suffering of its people.
The debate extended to nearly two Parliamentary hours.
Government minister Jeremy Browne commented on Mr Shin's story, saying "his personal testimony I thought brought home, in a way that perhaps statistics would never manage to do, just the degree of human suffering that exists."
Martin Horwood MP said, "It is very important that we do focus on those people who have extraordinarily managed to escape from this regime ... people like Mr Shin".
The MPs had clearly been moved by Shin's testimony. A handful of MPs really can stir change.
Though Westminster Hall is many thousands of miles from the prison camps of North Korea, we hope that debates like these will spur those in positions of power to seek change for those who are suffering. We wait eagerly to see the results.
Watch the film for highlights of the debate and to learn how you can help by sending a message to Kim Jong Un.
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