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Human rights violations in North Korea

6 min read

From: officialflagrant

Yeonmi Park, a renowned author and defector, provides firsthand accounts of the severe human rights violations and oppressive conditions prevalent in North Korea [00:00:22]. Her experiences highlight a stark contrast with the freedoms enjoyed in democratic societies.

Lack of Basic Freedoms and Daily Life

Life in North Korea is characterized by extreme hardship and pervasive control [00:06:04].

  • Food Scarcity: Access to food is incredibly difficult, with people often resorting to eating insects such as grasshoppers, dragonflies, and butterflies, and even rats [00:06:08]. Starvation is common, with spring being referred to as the “season of death” due to lack of plant growth [00:06:59]. The regime is accused of intentionally starving its population to maintain control [00:25:18].
  • Limited Amenities: Even for those considered to have a “relatively fine life” by North Korean standards, there is no electricity, cars, toys, or refrigerators, and limited clothing and bathing facilities [00:26:00].
  • Lack of Free Market: There are no restaurants or free markets in North Korea [00:13:38].
  • Information Control: Access to the internet and international phone services is non-existent [00:33:47]. Communication with the outside world requires smuggling Chinese phones and making calls from remote mountain areas to avoid government jamming and surveillance [00:33:52].
  • Censorship: Comedy, for instance, must glorify dictators [00:15:10]. Reading the Bible is considered the biggest crime and can lead to execution [02:11:12]. Movies that mock dictators, commonplace in America, are unimaginable [01:13:00]. All public banners are propaganda, with no advertisements [02:24:25].
  • Personal Restrictions: People cannot decide their own haircuts [01:55:31], and there is no freedom to divorce [00:57:33].

Government Control and Oppression

The North Korean regime maintains absolute control over its citizens through a brutal system.

  • Punishment for Dissent: Political crimes, such as criticizing the leader, can lead to the arrest of up to eight generations of a family [01:17:41]. One high-ranking official’s escape led to over 30,000 people being sent to prison camps, even if distantly related [01:17:51].
  • Prison System: North Korea operates three types of prisons:
    • Re-education camps: Sentences are typically less than two years [01:18:27].
    • Labor camps: Sentences can be over ten years [01:18:32].
    • Political prison camps (Concentration Camps): These are lifetime sentences, but prisoners rarely last more than three months, often worked to death and forced to clean nuclear weapon debris, leading to high cancer rates [01:18:39]. The entire country is described as a prison camp, with the ocean sealed by guards [01:35:00].
  • Targeting of Defectors: Defectors like Yeonmi Park are placed on killing lists, and their families back in North Korea are denounced and “disappeared” [01:08:10].
  • Propaganda and Image Management:
    • Pyongyang, the capital, is maintained to look nice, similar to “The Hunger Games” Capitol, while other districts suffer [02:24:48]. This is part of the regime’s strategy to control perception and focus resources on a small percentage of the population [02:25:07].
    • Tourists are constantly accompanied and cannot move freely, even within their hotels [02:26:49].
    • The regime creates exaggerated stories about its leaders, such as Kim Jong-il learning to walk at 8 weeks, shooting 38 under par in golf (including 11 holes-in-one), and inventing the hamburger [02:43:08]. The calendar begins with Kim Il-sung’s birth, replacing BC/AD [02:49:02].
  • Pleasure Squads: Young women, starting at age 16 or 17, are selected for “Pleasure Squads” for the dictator, involving sexual acts, massage, or performing as dancers and musicians [02:23:01].
  • Social Stratification: The population is divided into 51 different classes based on “loyalty,” inherited from ancestors’ perceived status (e.g., landowners being “tainted”) [01:55:54].
  • Reproductive Control: The government requires people to have children to create more “slaves” for nuclear weapon production [01:55:10], even assigning marriages and jobs [01:55:25].
  • Sexual Violence: In the military, male officers routinely rape women soldiers, and if women become pregnant, they are punished, not the officers [01:59:49]. There is no concept of sexual harassment or women’s rights [01:59:57].

Escape and its Dangers

The journey to escape North Korea is fraught with extreme peril and often leads to further exploitation. This is part of Yeonmi Park’s North Korean escape and survival story.

  • Border Crossing: The border to China is guarded every 10 meters with machine guns, landmines, electrified wire fences, and facial recognition cameras [01:14:02]. Escapes are sometimes possible through bribing guards [01:14:32].
  • Human Trafficking: Many North Korean women and children, including Yeonmi Park and her mother, are immediately sold as sex slaves in China upon crossing the border [01:14:44]. The broker who helped Park escape also sold her own children [01:16:53].
  • Journey to Mongolia: The subsequent journey to Mongolia involves crossing the Gobi Desert, a 24-hour straight journey in temperatures as low as -40°C, with no proper gear [01:19:33]. Survival rates are as low as 1% [01:16:16].
  • Missionary Rescue: Some escapees are rescued by missionaries who provide aid, but often require them to convert to Christianity [01:20:08].
  • Continuing Danger: Even after defecting, individuals face threats of assassination, especially in countries with North Korean embassies [01:28:08]. China maintains a blacklist, preventing defectors from entering or potentially kidnapping and repatriating them [01:29:11]. South Korea’s intelligence also warns defectors of assassination risks [01:29:40].

International Perception and Challenges

The world’s response to North Korea’s human rights crisis is complex and often influenced by geopolitical and economic factors.

  • China’s Role: China props up the North Korean regime by selling weapons, sharing nuclear technology (inherited from the Soviet Union) [02:17:15], and supplying oil, which is crucial for the regime’s survival [02:29:30]. China benefits from North Korea’s existence as it diverts attention from its own human rights issues, making China “look good” by comparison [02:35:10].
  • Lack of Global Action: Despite the severe human rights situation, often described as a “modern-day Holocaust” [01:27:27], the world’s focus on human rights often does not translate into regime change in North Korea [02:28:08].
  • South Korean Discrimination: North Korean defectors face significant discrimination in South Korea, often looked down upon due to their poverty and perceived lack of competitiveness or trustworthiness [02:40:03].
  • Western Media and Academia: Yeonmi Park’s story and public perception is often politicized. She has been advised by agents not to appear on certain media outlets (like Fox News) to maintain a “mainstream” image [03:34:41]. Academia and media can be reluctant to engage with her full story or portray it accurately if it contradicts certain ideologies or risks upsetting China [03:51:52]. Film studios, for example, have tried to alter her story to portray China positively due to their market interests [02:07:07]. There is a tendency in some Western academic circles to equate American prisons with North Korean prison camps, a comparison Yeonmi Park refutes as a “disservice” to the severe nature of North Korean atrocities [03:19:19].

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