Save North Korean Refugees Day, which falls on 24 September, aims to highlight the terrible trials faced by North Korean refugees in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also marks the day, 36 years ago, that China became a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, an agreement the country continues to violate through its treatment of North Korean escapees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees is illegal as it violates the fundamental international humanitarian principle of \u2018non-refoulement\u2019, which prohibits receiving countries from returning refugees to a country where they would likely face persecution due to their “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, that is exactly what they are being sent back to: North Korea is one of the world\u2019s most repressive regimes, referred to by the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry<\/a> as \u201ca State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world\u201d<\/em> in terms of human rights violations. CSW\u2019s 2016 report<\/a> previously revealed that deported escapees regularly face execution, torture, arbitrary detention, deliberate starvation, illegal cavity searches, forced abortions, and other sexual violence at the hands of the North Korean authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n While CSW\u2019s latest report<\/a> found that the number of people fleeing North Korea has fallen slightly in recent years, the desire for escape from Kim Jong Un\u2019s brutal regime remains unsurprisingly strong among a large proportion of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The desire for escape from Kim Jong Un\u2019s brutal regime remains unsurprisingly strong among a large proportion of the population.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The act of leaving North Korea is often referred to as \u2018defection\u2019, and those that flee are called \u2018defectors.\u2019 Despite this, it seems more appropriate to refer to these individuals as escapees or refugees, as the term defector presupposes some form of political motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People flee North Korea for many reasons, however CSW\u2019s found that principal motivations for escape have changed over the past decade. In a series of interviews conducted with North Korean escapees, most respondents suggested that the principal reason for fleeing the country in 2007 was to escape dire economic situations such as starvation. While this remains a key motivator, respondents believe that it has since been surpassed by political reasons and economic or educational opportunities for themselves or their children as the main reasons for escape, suggesting that North Koreans are no longer just interested in surviving, but in living a life of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Escaping North Korea is extremely difficult. Tightening border security and increasing border surveillance are pushing up the price of facilitating escape, and those that do choose to flee are subject to unimaginable horrors. One escapee, Yeonmi Park<\/a>, was just thirteen years-old when she witnessed her mother\u2019s rape at the hands of human traffickers as the two of them attempted to flee to China. The fact that people are choosing to face such extreme hardships and costs in order to get out of the country is indicative of the extent of the horrors they face in North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While many North Koreans attempt to reach South Korea or other countries, for a large number China is the first nation they reach, but it is no safe haven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China views refugees as illegal economic migrants and therefore routinely deports them back to North Korea. In 2014, the UN Commission of Inquiry Report on North Korea<\/a> The practice has continued since the publication of the COI\u2019s report; for example in November 2017, ten defectors including a four year-old child, were forcibly repatriated<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0North Korea Freedom Coalition<\/a> estimates that over eighty percent of North Korean escapees carry poison in order to kill themselves if they are caught by Chinese authorities. They would rather die than be forcibly returned to North Korea. It is also estimated that over eighty percent of North Korea females are subjected to human trafficking because of China\u2019s policy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Chinese authorities have also cracked down on those trying to help escapees. According to a research paper by Ji Hae Oh and Soo Hyang Kim of Handong University, dozens of South Korean Christian missionaries who helped North Koreans in China have been deported. This represents a clear concerted effort to isolate and silence escapees.<\/p>\n\n\n\nReasons for \u2018Defection\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No Safe Haven<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n