N. K. 'food refugees' in northern China
suffer abuses without legal protection
Korea Herald
9/7/99

A North Korean female refugee in a state of extreme malnutrition says she lost all other family members due to starvation before fleeing to China.

     A boy, barely 10 years old, reveals bruises and scratches all over his skinny body wrapped in rags. "People hit me with steel chains on my legs and knees. If I scream, more lashes follow," said the boy tearfully.

     "In order to live as a 'food refugee,' one should be ready to die of three things - starving, flogging and freezing," says a 50-something man, equally shabby and shaggy.

     Conditions are even worse for women, who are often forced into marriages to men their parents' ages only to work as maids-cum-sexual partners. "I finally managed to escape from my buyer-husband, but was caught again by another human trafficker," said a woman in her late 20s. "After being sold several times, I ended up at a bar. Now I have to sleep with customers." These are part of the videotaped testimonies by North Koreans who defected from their starving country to China, released by a South Korean Buddhist relief group, Good Friends, last week.

     An alarming number of North Koreans have been escaping from the hunger and human rights violations in their motherland to the nearest neighboring country, mostly by crossing the Tumen River, which runs between the North and China.

     China is just minutes away at some parts of this border, where the river is the width of a dozen meters. For these escapees, China - widely called by the Seoul government as a "third" country - may be a place of dreams, but their host country seems not to think of them as refugees, let alone guests.

     "In a nutshell, we are traitors in our homeland and illegal migrants in the land of exile," said a defector.

     The relief group estimated the number of such food refugees at no less than 300,000, revealing an incredible gap between the unofficial government tally of about 1,500.

     "Most of them are suffering from severe maltreatment with no legal protection of the Chinese government," said the representative of the group, Venerable Pomnyun.

     Not merely reluctant to acknowledge these North Koreans as legal refugees who deserve the protection of international laws, China, the closest ally of Pyongyang, even moved to tighten its surveillance over the hiding refugees, he said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

     If exposed to Chinese security officers, most of them are deported back to North Korea to face harsh punishment by criminal law there, not a few of them facing death sentences.

     The situation is not much better for defectors still at large, however.

     "Awaiting these defectors who managed to escape from devastating food shortages in their motherland are other hardships in China - equally painful, if different in nature," said the religious human rights activist.

     Also in the videotaped interview, a middle-aged man roaming around Mt. Paekdu, which straddles the North Korean-Chinese border, said, "More often than not, I feel it sadder to endure beating by the Chinese than to suffer from hunger."

     Most of the 2,700 North Korean refugees interviewed by Good Friends said the mistreatment is due to the defectors' inability to report to the Chinese police for fear of being arrested and sent back to North Korea.

     Among those who undergo the biggest hardships in the dead angle of human rights are female refugees, estimated to amount to 75 percent of the total refugees, the group said.

     In the past, North Korean women came to marry Korean-Chinese men either through brokers or introductions by relatives and acquaintances in a bid to stay in China while concealing their identity.

     These days, however, organizations specializing in selling female defectors to Chinese men have appeared, the report said. "There are even criminal rings that kidnap women if they only look like Koreans."

     North Korean female refugees are popular in China because they are good workers and have no other choice but to endure such maltreatment as confinements, sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancies and forced abortions.

     International indifference

        Accusing the international community of neglecting such blatant infringements of human rights, South Koreans have called on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to grant legal status to North Korean refugees and prohibit the Chinese government from repatriating them by force.

     The Christian Council of Korea, for instance, launched a campaign in April to collect 10 million signatures for a petition to the United Nations for protecting the food refugees, garnering 1 million so far.

     In addition, 70 South Korean leaders from various walks of life, including former Prime Minister Noh Jae-bong, made a statement calling for the guarantee of human rights and protection of the refugees. Since inaugurating their own group in March, the social leaders have since been pushing to make joint drives with their foreign counterparts in countries such as the United States, China and Japan.

     Good Friends also urged the Chinese government to give refugees the opportunity to apply for asylum, or at least allow international organizations to conduct "formal research" into the problem.

     All of these actions, however, appeared to have fallen on deaf ears, including the Beijing government, at least so far.

     The United Nations still refuses to recognize the escapees as legal refugees and Beijing expresses strong dissatisfaction with the involvement of Seoul and non-governmental groups in the issue.

     The Chinese government has long designated the North Korean defectors as "undocumented migrants who have crossed the border to acquire food" instead of "food refugees." Just last week, the Chinese Ambassador to Seoul criticized South Koreans for meddling in a "matter to be solved by China and North Korea."

     As international law states that the legal status of refugees can be granted only with the approval of the country where they are staying, it seems difficult for North Korean refugees who crossed the Chinese border to achieve that goal, said Lee Keum-soon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

     "Instead, as a feasible alternative, I propose that China acknowledge North Korean refugees as 'displaced persons,' who should not be forced to return home based on international regulations," Lee said.

     According to the International Organization for Migration, which governs the regulations, even ordinary "undocumented migrants" are entitled to the right to life, the prohibition of torture and mistreatment and the freedom of movement, she said.

     "As the issue of North Korean refugees is too sensitive for both Beijing and Pyongyang to change their policies, even a modified approach will be helpful for those who are risking their lives to escape their hunger-stricken country," Lee said.

Updated: 09/07/1999 by Kim Ji-ho Staff reporter

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