Save North Korean Refugees Day 2022

30 September 2022

His Excellency Xi Jinping

President of the People’s Republic of China and General-Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party

℅ His Excellency Zheng Zeguang

Embassy of the People’s Republic of China

49-51 Portland Place,

London, W1B 1JL

Dear General Secretary Xi,

Forty years ago, on 24 September 1982, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. By signing this agreement, the PRC agreed to abide by international concerns and protocols for refugees.

The ‘Trafficking in Persons’ report (2022) highlighted that in North Korea, forced labour is part of a firm system of political repression and has become an axis of its economic system. North Korean authorities mobilize residents for forced labour through political prison camps and labour correction centers, as well as sending workers overseas.

It was reported that in China:

“The government did not undertake efforts to identify trafficking victims within the PRC’s highly vulnerable North Korean migrant population, nor did it provide suspected North Korean trafficking victims with legal alternatives to repatriation”.

“Traffickers lure, drug, detain, or kidnap some North Korean women upon their arrival in the PRC and compel them into commercial sex in brothels and bars, through internet sex sites, or in relation to forced marriage.”

The UN Special Rapporteur Elizabeth Salmon said that “I received information that as many as 2000 North Korean escapees are currently detained in China and some other escapees are held at the North Korean consulates in other countries facing the risk of repatriation.”

According to the 2010 UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, “trafficking in persons” means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

We appeal to you to stop the trafficking and repatriation of North Korean people. Those returned under your current policies face certain torture, certain imprisonment, and even public execution.

As a member of the United Nations, the Chinese government must grant refugee status to all North Korean refugees in accordance with the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and at least allow them safe passage to South Korea or another third country.

Yours sincerely,

Kenny Latunde-Dada Amnesty International UK, Country Coordinator, North Korea

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) Group

Timothy Cho Inquiry Clerk All- Party Parliamentary Groups on North Korea

KIM Hyung-soo Stepping Stones

Jihyun Park Human Rights Activist

Fiona Donovan Salisbury Amnesty Group in the UK

Lesley Curbishley Salisbury Amnesty Group in the UK

Stephen Newman Wearside Amnesty Group in the UK

Myung Jnag North Korean Refugee

Kwang Joo North Korean Refugee