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| Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth holds the report "You Cry at Night but Don't Know Why: Sexual Violence against Women in North Korea" during a press conference in central Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap |
By Kim Jae-heun
A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international nongovernmental organization, revealed Thursday that government officials committin sexual violence is rampant in North Korea.
The report, titled "You Cry at Night but Don't Know Why': Sexual Violence against Women in North Korea," contains interviews with 106 North Korean defectors conducted between January 2015 and July 2018. Fifty-seven of them have defected after Kim Jong-un rose to power in 2011.
According to the report, a large number of married women in North Korea had become exposed to sexual violence while working at marketplaces, where government officials exploit them sexually.
Twenty-one women said they have either been sexually harassed or assaulted by government officials.
According to one female defector, state regulators or security men would just tell women to follow them into an empty room or someplace else whenever they wanted. She said it happened so often that the officials did not think it was wrong and women became used to it.
Sexual violence was more serious at detention facilities.
Another woman said she was caught while trying to escape to China in 2009 and was detained in Chongjin. "There was a woman who was consistently raped by the officer. Another officer would rape every new female prisoner," she said in the report.
"If North Korean women had judicial means to deal with sexual violence, they would call out for a #MeToo movement, but their voices are silenced under the dictatorship of Kim," Kenneth Roth, executive director of the HRW, said during a press conference in central Seoul. "We should not let North Korean officials rape women who are going out to work to support their family. North Korean leaders including Kim should recognize such problem and protect the women."
Roth said Kim could benefit much from stopping violations of woman's rights in his country, which is not a difficult job.
As the denuclearization process is expected to take a long time, the executive director believes Kim can improve human rights in his country and start economic exchanges with South Korea or join international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"Stopping rape would not threaten the government's grip on power. Stopping rape does not mean regime change. The government doesn't stop rape because it doesn't care and we want to change that," Roth said.
