“We were treated like slaves”: two defectors detail brutal North Korea abuses at UN

The United Nations General Assembly held its first-ever high-level meeting focused on North Korea human rights on May 20, featuring testimony from defectors and international human rights experts. The session spotlighted the regime’s systemic abuses, with personal accounts underscoring the scale and severity of ongoing violations.

The meeting, convened by UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis, followed a resolution adopted by consensus in December 2023 that called for such a forum. While UN Security Council and Human Rights Council have previously addressed North Korean rights abuses, this was the first such session held at the General Assembly level.

Defectors speak out

Two North Korean defectors, Kim Eun-joo and Kang Gyuri, took the podium to recount their experiences under the regime. Kim, a human rights activist and author of The Will of an 11-Year-Old, spoke of losing her father to starvation at age 11 and being trafficked upon arriving in China with her mother and sister. She testified that young North Korean soldiers are now being sent to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war, unaware of their purpose, and used as tools for profit by the regime.

Kang, who escaped North Korea with her mother and aunt aboard a small wooden boat in October 2023, described the continued lack of basic freedoms. She said her family was exiled from Pyongyang for practicing shamanism and condemned the regime’s ideological dominance, where only Juche ideology, which legitimizes dynastic rule, is tolerated. Kang also claimed that three of her friends were executed during COVID-19 lockdown, two for distributing South Korean dramas—one of whom was just 19.

Warnings from experts

Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), warned that the regime’s abuses have global implications, citing arms exports to militant groups in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He described North Korea as a source of violence and instability, rooted in domestic repression.

Elizabeth Salmón, the UN’s special rapporteur on North Korean human rights, noted that conditions have worsened significantly since the pandemic. She cited prolonged border closures, curtailed humanitarian aid, and new laws that further restrict movement, labor rights, and freedom of expression.

Also speaking was Sean Jeong, head of One Voice, representing over 300 North Korea human rights groups across 116 countries. He urged the UN to establish an independent body to investigate the link between human rights abuses and North Korea’s weapons programs.

UN responses and diplomatic tensions

Ilze Brands Kehris, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, reported that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has collected over 800 victim and witness interviews. She added that North Korea has recently shown limited engagement with UN mechanisms, including accepting some recommendations during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—a potential signal of progress if implemented.

North Korea’s UN Ambassador Kim Song, the first to speak as a member state, denounced the meeting as a violation of sovereignty and the result of manipulation by hostile forces. He called defectors “scum” and accused human rights organizations of being tools of U.S. and South Korean political agendas.

In response, Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea’s Ambassador to the UN, praised the courage of the defectors, calling their testimonies “undeniable evidence” of systemic abuse. He emphasized that North Korea’s human rights violations cannot be treated as secondary to nuclear threats, asserting the two are deeply connected.

“Stopping the regime’s rights abuses would also halt its weapons development,” Hwang said. “Weapons made from the suffering of North Korean people are now falling on European soil, prolonging the war in Ukraine and threatening global peace and security.”

BY MOOYOUNG LEE  [lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com]