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PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Serial No. 115–98

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

BRIAN J. MAST, Florida 

FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida 

BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia 

JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

NORMA J. TORRES, California 

BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York 

TED LIEU, California

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

THOMAS A. GARRETT, JR., Virginia 

KAREN BASS, California 

AMI BERA, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Ms. Hyeona Ji, North Korean defector, co-chairperson, Worldwide Coalition 

to Stop Genocide in North Korea ........................................................................ 5

Ms. Han Ga Hee (alias), North Korean defector, announcer and sound engineer, Free North Korea Radio ............................................................................. 14

The Honorable Robert King, senior adviser, Korea chair, Center for Strategic 

and International Studies (former U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean 

Human Rights Issues) ......................................................................................... 28

Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director, The Committee for Human Rights 

in North Korea ..................................................................................................... 34

Ms. Suzanne Scholte, president, Defense Forum Foundation, chairwoman, 

North Korea Freedom Coalition .......................................................................... 43

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Ms. Hyeona Ji: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 10

Ms. Han Ga Hee (alias): Prepared statement ....................................................... 18

The Honorable Robert King: Prepared statement ................................................ 31

Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu: Prepared statement ............................................................. 36

Ms. Suzanne Scholte: Prepared statement ............................................................ 47

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 66

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 67

The Honorable Karen Bass, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California: Material submitted for the record ............................................... 68

(1)

PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2017

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in room 

2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and good afternoon to everybody. 

At a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, North 

Korea defector Ambassador Thae Yong-Ho testified about the strategic value of both disseminating information into North Korea and 

the protection of North Korean refugees in China. 

Drawing on an analogy about the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ambassador Thae claimed that there may be a similar result if China 

stopped repatriations of refugees in the United States and the 

international community, expanded soft power news and information flows into North Korea. 

He was very dramatic in his testimony and couldn’t be clearer 

just how much of a game changer it would be if the refugees could 

find a place of refuge in China, and then on to other places like 

South Korea and other places where freedom flourishes. 

This hearing will explore the current situation facing North Korean asylum seekers and assess both the Chinese legal obligation 

to protect refugees and the effectiveness of global efforts to stop 

what the U.N. Commission on Inquiry on Human Rights in North 

Korea called crimes against humanity experienced by refugees. 

As the Congress continues to look at ways to best apply maximum diplomatic and financial pressure on the regime of Kim 

Jong-un, this hearing will explore the strategic relevance of further 

pressing the Chinese Government to protect North Korean refugees 

and evaluate the impact of surging outside information into North 

Korea will have. 

Amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we cannot 

forget those suffering under the North Korean regime and those 

North Korean refugees who are in China. 

North Korean asylum seekers are in imminent risk of repatriation, torture, sexual violence, forced abortions, hard labor, and 

even execution. 

2

China’s repatriations of the North Koreans is a stark violation of 

both the spirit and the letter of the Refugee Convention and the 

1967 protocol to which China has acceded. 

The Chinese Government has a lot to answer for. It is no wonder 

that the U.N. Commission on Inquiry for North Korea Human 

Rights concluded that the Government of the People’s Republic of 

China is aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity by forcefully repatriating North Korean refugees. 

I would note that as many as 90 percent of North Korean women 

refugees in China today fall prey to traffickers who will sell the refugees into sexual slavery or forced marriages. 

Suzanne Scholte, who will testify during this hearing, previously 

brought women who were refugees from North Korea—Mrs. Ma 

and others—who for the first time told the story about how they 

were exploited inside of China and forced into sex trafficking. 

It was just horrific testimony, but an eye opener about how they 

went from an exploitation in North Korea into exploitation into 

China. 

Labor trafficking is also pervasive. The Government of North 

Korea and the government and businesses in China, Russia, and 

elsewhere in the world profit from the trafficking of North Korean 

laborers. 

In recent months, Chinese authorities reportedly deported hundreds of South Korean missionaries and NGO workers who have 

provided crucial help to the North Korean refugees in China. 

The people providing that assistance have been ousted as well. 

The international community, especially the United Nations, 

Trump administration, and the U.S. Congress must insist that 

China honor its treaty obligations and end its egregious practice of 

systematic repatriation of North Korean refugees. 

I would note parenthetically I have raised this repeatedly with 

now the Secretary General and the former head of the UNHCR and 

never got a good answer. So the U.N. really needs to step up to the 

plate here. 

Chinese officials and businesses complicit in repatriation of 

North Korean refugees or those who profit from labor trafficking 

should also be held accountable. 

The Congress has given the administration the sanction tools 

that, if used, would send the right message and especially hold people to account. Whether it be through the North Korean Sanctions 

Enforcement Act, the Global Magnitsky Act, or those sanctions attached to China’s Tier 3 designation for trafficking in persons. 

All should be used strategically and swiftly to send a clear message. For too long the world has tolerated China’s failures to protect refugees, and those complicit in repatriations of refugees who 

profit from the trafficking of North Koreans should be held accountable. 

The annual repatriation should be a bellwether for judging China’s willingness to curtail Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions. In addition to the protection of North Korean refugees, this hearing will 

also assess global efforts to surge news and information into North 

Korea. 

Expansion of existing efforts to disseminate information into 

North Korea is especially important, if for nothing else than to tarVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:55 Jan 30, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\121217\27811 SHIRL
3

nish and undermine the Kim family cult of personality where they 

are lifted up as gods. 

The Kim family cult must be taken seriously as a national security threat and a barometer of Kim Jong-un’s power. The cult of 

personality, sometimes called Juche, has inspired devotion from the 

North Korean people because of the cradle to grave propaganda 

that they endure. 

We must undermine the Kim family cult and the big lies upon 

which it is based and the propaganda that grants Kim Jong-un almost godlike status. 

This status has allowed three generations of the Kim family to 

starve and abuse the North Korean people and divert scarce resources to the military and to their nuclear programs. 

We must have an information surge into North Korea. Human 

rights groups are smuggling DVDs and USB sticks with video 

about the Kim family’s sins into North Korea right now. 

Balloons are launched across the border with promises of a better 

life in South Korea. Radio programs broadcast daily messages and 

news urging North Korea’s elite to defect and turn against Kim 

Jong-un. 

We know some of these efforts are having an effect. We saw several high-level defections of diplomats, military officers, and the 

families of North Korea’s elites in the last year alone. 

The number of asylum seekers depressed for several years by upgraded security efforts in China have begun to rise. Efforts to get 

information into North Korea must be expanded dramatically and 

Washington should be leading this effort, working primarily with 

North Korean defector groups in South Korea and other human 

rights organizations. 

The North Korean defector groups should be front and center in 

this effort. They know North Korea and they know the minds of the 

people. They know what information is needed to permanently tarnish the Kim family cult and what will motivate military leaders 

to defect. 

Today’s hearing takes place among growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. We must seek all available options to deal with 

and resolve the issues at hand. 

I now yield to my good friend and colleague, Ms. Bass, for any 

comments she might have. 

Ms. BASS. As always, thank you, Mr. Chair, for your leadership 

on this issue and so many other issues, particularly involving 

human rights. 

We know that this is an important hearing on the plight of refugees fleeing North Korea and the leadership role that we can play 

in protecting their human rights. 

I also want to thank our witnesses for being here today and I 

look forward to your insight. I would especially like to thank them 

for their courage and their resolve to testify. 

We know that North Korea is home to one of the most repressive 

governments in the world. The U.N. Commission on Inquiry on 

Human Rights has called for an investigation into violations that 

may amount to crimes against humanity, and it is common knowledge that the quality of life for everyday North Koreans is deplorVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:55 Jan 30, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\121217\27811 SHIRL
4

able. They face widespread malnutrition, acute food shortages, and 

extreme poverty. 

When it comes to these human rights abuses, Democrats and Republicans agree that the atrocities taking place in North Korea 

must be stopped. 

We must continue to pursue bipartisan policies that promote 

human rights and work with the U.N. and our international partners to hold North Korea accountable. 

While our military options in North Korea area limited, we can 

still advance human rights and respect the aspirations of the people there. 

One way to do so is through information. North Koreans have 

limited knowledge of the outside world but increasing their access 

to information can help create an informed populace which will in 

turn benefit them as well as the international community. 

I would like to point out that although the number of North Koreans seeking asylum in the U.S. is low, it behooves us to welcome 

and support those refugees who do reach us, given how much they 

have already suffered. 

The people attempting to escape North Korea face insurmountable odds, mostly to China where they are likely to be repatriated 

to North Korean officials and forced in the labor camps. 

Given the human rights crisis in East Asia, we need to act decisively. This is why I am deeply troubled that despite the egregious 

reports concerning North Korea and the national security threat it 

poses, the administration has still not appointed a U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. 

It is critical that we have American diplomats on the ground. I 

also continue to be deeply troubled and critical of the administration and in particular President Trump’s juvenile and unprofessional verbal attacks on the North Korean leadership. 

Like the chair said, the regime—the cult has to be taken seriously and my concern is that these attacks, especially the nature 

of them—calling the North Korean leader names—these attacks diminish our ability to bring about change and, in my opinion, only 

reinforce the regime’s propaganda that the U.S. is waiting to attack. 

With that, Mr. Chair, I yield my time. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. Bass. 

I would like to now turn to Dan Donovan. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield my time so as to allow 

the witnesses more time to testify. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, I’d say, to my friend. 

Let me begin by welcoming our first panel. We have two panels 

today. Ms. Hyeona Ji, who is a North Korean defector, human 

rights activist, and writer. Her entire family decided to escape 

North Korea in 1998. Ms. Ji was soon arrested and repatriated to 

North Korea during the first repatriation in February 1998 and 

was harshly interrogated and beaten, and witnessed other repatriated North Koreans, including adults, children, pregnant women, 

undergo beatings and invasive searches for hidden money. 

Ms. Ji escaped North Korea again in April 1998, leaving behind 

her younger brother, to search for her mother and sister in China. 

5

She was caught by sex traffickers and sold for $25,000 Chinese 

yuan. 

In April 1999, she was arrested by Chinese authorities again and 

forced to be repatriated again for the second time. 

In November 2000, she escaped North Korea for the third time. 

In 2002 she was arrested and forcibly repatriated to North Korea 

again. This time, while 3 months pregnant upon her arrival in 

North Korea, she underwent a forced abortion without anesthetics, 

almost dying from blood loss at the hands of North Korean authorities. 

Ms. Ji was about to be sentenced without a fair trial. But thanks 

to a compassionate security officer, she was able to avoid further 

incarceration and in October of that same year escaped North 

Korea again. 

Since her arrival in South Korea in 2007, Ms. Ji has been very 

active as a human rights activist in South Korea and abroad, telling the world of her experience, of multiple escapes and forced repatriation. She is currently co-chairperson of the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea. We welcome her and are 

honored to have her testify today. 

Our second witness will be Ms. Han Ga Hee, who was born in 

1980 in North Korea. She studied at an ag college and worked as 

a laborer at a collective farm. 

While in North Korea, she listened to the radio broadcast of Free 

North Korea Radio. The difficult conditions in North Korea and her 

curiosity led her to cross the border to go to China in 2002. 

She worked various jobs in China but was always in constant 

danger of repatriation to North Korea. After 6 years in China, she 

saved up enough money to hire a broker to get her to South Korea. 

After she paid him the money, the broker dropped her off at the 

border of Mongolia and handed her a compass and told her to head 

north across the grassland and the Gobi Desert. 

Alone, she walked for several days without knowing where to go 

and finally was found by Mongolian police. Once she reached South 

Korea in ’08, she went to visit the Free North Korea radio station 

and learned the truth. 

All the people working there were defectors who fled North 

Korea. She has been working ever since for Free North Korea 

Radio—that’s 8 years now—and has become a news announcer and 

is a producer of a gospel program. 

We welcome her and are honored to have her testify as well. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HYEONA JI, NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR, 

CO-CHAIRPERSON, WORLDWIDE COALITION TO STOP GENOCIDE IN NORTH KOREA 

[The following statement and answers were delivered through an 

interpreter.] 

Ms. JI. Hello, my name is Hyeona Ji and I would like to express 

my appreciation to Members of Congress for your interest and concern for North Korean human rights. 

In North Korea, the fact that 3 million people starved to death 

didn’t seem out of the ordinary. The determination to escape from 

a country that denies its people freedom and human rights was 

stronger than the will to survive. 

6

So I decided to leave North Korea, my close friends, neighbors, 

and my lovely hometown, and I left my fate up to the Tumen River 

at the border between China and North Korea. 

In 1963, 3 years before the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, 

my ethnic Korean-Chinese father, at the young age of 16, crossed 

the border into North Korea to find freedom. 

In December 1997, he heard radio programs aired on the Korean 

Broadcasting System—KBS—while visiting family in China. Realizing that he had been duped his entire life, he came back to North 

Korea and persuaded the rest of us to leave North Korea. 

So in February 1998, my father crossed the border in search of 

freedom again into China and by way of going upstream in the 

Tumen River, and with my mother and my two younger siblings we 

escaped via a lower part of the river downstream. 

We were supposed to meet him at a predetermined location in 

China. But he was soon arrested—that’s what we determined—and 

we have not known of his whereabouts for the last 19 years and 

my mother and two siblings and I were also immediately arrested 

and repatriated. 

Afterward, I witnessed my mother being kicked with hard shoes 

for defecting and we were forced to sit down and stand up nearly 

100 times doing the squatting motion in the process of being inspected for any illegal contraband, especially money, and we were 

subject to very severe thought criticism at the numerous agencies 

of the North Korean Government. 

And, of course, our neighbors and friends gave us the cold shoulder. I was taken to and tortured at the Ministry of State Security 

for keeping a small Korean language Bible given to me from my 

mother, because in North Korea they don’t allow freedom of religion. 

I was released only after lying that I found it on the ground after 

severe beating and torture, and my mother and younger sister 

went to China and were supposed to return in a couple days. But 

they were kidnapped and sold. 

And they went to China in search of food to bring back to the 

family but they were arrested and sold into this human trafficking 

situation. And my youngest sister, who was only 17 at the time, 

was sold and forced to marry an ethnic Chinese man who was over 

40 years old. 

I myself was also trafficked and so my brother lost all of us when 

he was only 10 years old when he was left back in North Korea. 

When I was repatriated a year later, that was when I began to witness the worst of North Korea’s human rights atrocities. 

At the Jeungsan Detention Facility, pregnant women were forced 

to do hard labor all day long. Because North Korea does not allow 

for mixed ethnicities, they made repatriated women who became 

pregnant in China to miscarry by forcing them to do hard labor. 

At night we heard pregnant mothers screaming and babies dying 

without being able to see their mothers. I was reunited with my 

mother, whom I had not seen for a year, when I was sent to the 

provincial police jail because she herself was also repatriated, and 

because of the abuse and torture that I received at this facility, my 

bones and my rib were not healed properly and as a result I still 

suffer from that beating. 

7

I was soon separated from my mother and then sent to the 

Jeungsan Re-education Camp Facility Number 11. This is the place 

where people that went in did not come out alive. 

This is the place where people were forced to do hard labor and 

because of lack of food given to the inmates they were forced to eat 

locusts or skin live frogs and reptiles and rats and eat that to make 

up for the deficient food that was given to them, and many inmates 

died from malnutrition and from suffering from diarrhea. 

Almost everyone who died was buried at a place that we inmates 

called Flower Hill. But everyone knew that the dead bodies ended 

up being food for the dogs belonging to the guard that kept watch 

over the burial site and these dogs belonged to the guard that was 

placed there to watch over the dead bodies. 

At the Jeungsan Re-education Prison Camp Number 11, I was 

beaten with a wooden bar and kicked for not obeying commands on 

time and as a result of this beating and other mistreatment, not 

only did I suffer broken ribs that didn’t heal properly, but to this 

day I suffer from chronic illnesses like epilepsy and fibromyalgia. 

I was given a 1-year sentence but was pardoned after 8 months 

on Kim Jong-il’s birthday on February 16th, 2000, and I escaped 

again, knowing that I had to tell the world about North Korea’s 

human rights realities. 

However, I was arrested and repatriated in China again for the 

third time and sent back to North Korea, this time 3 months pregnant, and I was forced to undergo an abortion without any medication at the police station in North Korea. 

So my first child passed away without ever seeing the world and 

without any time for me to even say sorry to my child. Even though 

I was haemorrhaging to death, they were filling out papers to send 

me to the Hamheung Re-education Prison Camp without even a 

fair trial. 

Thankfully, there was an officer on my case who took pity on me 

and let me be released from the prison due to my condition. Even 

though I was in terrible health, I crossed the Tumen River yet 

again to go into China. 

I had to do this because I vowed to myself and I made a promise 

to the people that I saw at Jeungsan Prison Camp that I would 

survive and live the life that they never got to live. 

And I made this vow crossing into China because I wanted to tell 

the world what the experience and to tell the people that I would 

survive and live the life that they, prisoners in Jeungsan, never got 

to live. 

Between my first escape from North Korea in February 1998 and 

2007, I was repatriated three times and escaped North Korea a 

total of four times. 

I spent 8 months in a re-education center and some time in 

China, which was a foreign place to me, before finally reaching 

South Korea in 2007. 

As soon as I arrived, I arranged for my mother and her daughter 

to come to Korea via Myanmar. But I had no news about my two 

younger siblings and father. 

And then one day my brother arrived in South Korea and my 

brother had been on the street for—alone for 13 years and we could 

not do anything but hold him, embrace him and cry. 

8

And the following year in 2011, my little sister, who was only 17 

when I last saw her, made it to South Korea via Thailand at the 

age of 31. So we were reunited after 14 years of separation and we 

wept with joy and we vowed that we will never be separated again. 

Right this moment, I miss my father terribly and this longing is 

not unique just for myself. It is a longing of all North Korean defectors. The recent case of the running of the defector soldier across 

the joint security area represents a dash toward freedom. That is 

the dream of 25 million North Korean people. 

North Korea is one terrifying prison and the Kim regime is carrying out crimes against humanity in North Korea, and it is only 

a miracle that people and I, myself, survived the hellish experience 

of the prison camp. 

However, the Chinese Government continues to send North Koreans seeking freedom back to this prison. On November 4th of this 

year, a mother and her child were detained on their way to meet 

their father in South Korea—in China. 

The excitement of meeting his father was momentary because 

the Chinese Government sent them back on a deadly path back to 

North Korea. 

China, which has lived through a so-called ‘‘Cultural Revolution,’’ 

is well aware of what happens to repatriated defectors and how 

they will be treated. Yet, it continues to send North Koreans back. 

How is this different from murder? I strongly urge the Chinese 

Government to discontinue and stop the forcible repatriation of 

North Korean refugees. 

Much like the Apostle Paul, who says in the Gospel that he is 

indebted for the Gospel, I confess to my father and to those who 

have died in prison after repatriation and to all North Koreans 

that I am in debt for my freedom. 

And so yesterday I asked the U.N. officials and today I ask Members of Congress and other people gathered throughout the world 

to fight for the freedom and human rights of North Koreans and 

repatriated defectors who do not even have the right to know or the 

right to own anything and who have no freedom at all in North 

Korea. 

I will now read a poem that I wrote for a book of poetry that I 

wrote in memory of the prisoners that dies in the prison camp, and 

it is titled, ‘‘Is Anyone There?’’

I am afraid. Is anyone out there? 

This is hell. Is anyone out there? 

Despite my urgent pleas, no one is opening the door for me. 

Is anyone there? 

Please hear our cries. 

Hear the pain of us getting stepped on. 

Is anyone there? 

Is anyone there? 

People are dying. My friend is dying also. 

I am calling and calling. Why is there no answer? 

Is there really no one there? 

There’s a poet—Dutch poet by the name of Job Degenaar and he 

said, ‘‘The doors to prison must be opened from the outside.’’

9

And so I appeal to you, to the United States, to South Korea, to 

all of us here to find many ways we can open the doors to North 

Korea. 

And when you meet people from North Korea once it becomes a 

free country and the people of North Korea ask you, what have you 

done as earlier beneficiaries of freedom that we do not have, all of 

us will have a good answer in reply to those North Koreans. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ji follows:]

10


27811a-1.eps

Hyeona Ji 

Representative, Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 

International Organizations. 

"Protecting North Korean Refugees", Dec. 12'h, 2017 

Henry Song- Interpreter 

### 

In North Korea, the fact that 3 million people starved to death didn't seem out ofthe ordinary. 

The determination to escape from a country that denies its people freedom and human rights was 

stronger than the will to survive. So I decided to leave North Korea, my close friends, neighbors, and 

lovely hometown and I left my fate up to the Tumen River at the border between China and North Korea. 

But I was separated from my father as soon as I set foot in China because of Chinese police rounding up 

North Korean defectors, and I was repatriated with my mother and two siblings. 

It was 1963, three years before China's Cultural Revolution began, when my ethnic Korean-Chinese 

(joseon-jok) father, at the young age of 16, crossed the border into North Korea to find freedom. In 

December 1997, he heard radio programs aired on the Korean Broadcasting System while visiting family 

in China. Realizing he had been duped his entire life, he persuaded us to leave North Korea. So in 

February 1998, my father crossed the border in search of freedom again, this time, into China, by way of 

upstream Tumen River. My mother, two siblings, and I escaped via a route more downstream. We were 

supposed to meet him at a predetermined location in China, but we have not known of his whereabouts 

for the last 19 years. My mother, two siblings and I were immediately repatriated. 

Afte!Ward, I witnessed my mother kicked with hard shoes for defecting, and we were forced to sit down 

and stand up nearly 100 times in the process of being inspected for carrying money. We were subject to 

thought criticism at numerous agencies. Our neighbors and friends gave us the cold shoulder. 

I was taken to and tortured at the Ministry of State Security for keeping a small Korean Bible given to me 

from my mother. You see, North Korea doesn't allow freedom of religion. I was released only after lying 

that I found it on the ground. My mother and younger sister went to China and were supposed to return in 

a couple of days, but they were kidnapped and sold. My little sister, at the young age of 17, was sold and 

forced to marry a man over 40. 
11


27811a-2.eps

I was also trafficked, so my brother lost all of us when he was just 10. When I was repatriated a year later, 

I witnessed the worst North Korea's human rights atrocities. 

At the Cheongjin detention center, pregnant women were forced to hard labor all day. Because North 

Korea does not allow mixed ethnicities, they make women who have become pregnant in China to 

miscarry by forcing them to hard labor. At night, we heard pregnant mothers screaming, and babies died 

without being able to see their mothers. There was a woman who gave birth to a baby at night at 8 

months after a full day of work. She was so happy to hold her child, bull hal moment was short lived. 

Soon after, a guard commanded her to drown her own newborn. She pleaded the guard for mercy with 

the baby in her arms, but in the end, she did as told. The image of the dead infant tore through my 20-

year-old heart. 

I was reunited with my mother, whom I had not seen for a year, when I was sent to the provincial police 

jail because she was also repatriated. But we were separated again, since I was sent to the Jeungsan 

Reeducation Center no. 11 without trial. 

Not many made it out alive from this place. Everyone was subject to harsh labor, and meals were so 

lacking that we ate raw locusts, discarded cabbage leaves, and skinned frogs and rats. People died 

withered and dehydrated from continuous diarrhea. 

I befriended a girl named Younghee. Her parents were shot dead and she was alone. We promised to 

survive this place and go to South Korea together. One day, we secretly ate some grass while working 

but got caught and were ordered to eat grass roots with dirt still on them. This caused Younghee diarrhea, 

and she eventually died from it. I could do nothing but weep and close her eyes after her death. 

Almost everyone who dies there is buried at a place called "Flower Hill," but everyone knows that the 

dead bodies end up being food the dog belonging to the guard. My friend Younghee was no exception. 

At Jeungsan Reeducation Center no. 11, I was beaten with a wooden bar and kicked for not obeying 

commands on lime. I suffered a broken rib that healed at an angle, and I suffer chronic illnesses like 

epilepsy and fibromyalgia. I was given a 1-year sentence but was pardoned after 8 months on Kim Jong 

ll's birthday on Feb. 16, 2000. I embarked on my third escape knowing I had to tell the world about North 

Korea's human rights realities. But I was repatriated for the third time when I was three months pregnant 

and was forced an abortion without any medication at the local police station in North Korea. 
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So my first child passed away without ever seeing the world, without any time for me to apologize. 

Even when I was hemorrhaging to death, they were filling out papers to send me to Hamheung 

Reeducation no. 55 without fair trial. Thankfully, the police officer on my case let me go on bail due to my 

condition. 

Though I was in terrible health, I crossed the lumen yet again. 

I had to, because I vowed to myself as I closed the eyes of the dying at Jeungsan Reeducation Center no. 

11, that I would survive to live the life they never got to live. 

Between my first escape from North Korea in Feb. 1998 and 2007, I was repatriated 3 limes and escaped 

a total of 41imes. I spent8 months in a reeducation center and some lime in China, a foreign place to me, 

before finally reaching South Korea in 2007. 

As soon as I arrived, I arranged for my mother and my daughter to come to Korea via Myanmar, but I 

have no news about my two younger siblings and father. 

Then one day, my brother arrived in South Korea. My brother had been on the streets alone for 13 years, 

and my mother could do nothing but cry while they embraced. And the next year, in 2011, my little sister 

who was 17 when I last saw her, made it to South Korea via Thailand at the age of 31. We hugged and 

wept endless tears at our first reunion in 14 years. 

Right now, I miss my father terribly. 

This longing is not unique. II is the longing of all North Korean defectors. The running of the recently 

defected North Korean soldier across the Joint Security Area represents a dash toward freedom that is 

the dream of 25 million North Koreans. North Korea is a terrifying prison, and it takes a miracle to survive 

there. 

But the Chinese government sends North Koreans seeking freedom back to this prison. 

On Nov. 4, a mother and her child were detained on the way to meet the father in South Korea. The 

excitement of meeting his dad was momentary, because the Chinese government sent them back on a 

deadly path. 
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China, which has lived through a so-called cultural revolution, is well aware of how repatriated defectors 

will be treated, yet it continues to send North Koreans back. How is this different from killing? 

I strongly urge the Chinese government to discontinue forcible repatriation of North Koreans toward death. 

Much like Paul the Apostle, who says he is in debt for the Gospel, I confess, to my father, those who have 

died in prison after repatriation, and all North Koreans, that I am in debt for freedom. 

I ask UN officials and representatives around the world, and members of the US Congress, to fight for the 

freedom and human rights of North Koreans and repatriated defectors, who do not even have the right to 

know or the right to own. 

I want to share a poem I wrote, titled, "Is Anyone There?" 

I am afraid, is anyone out there? 

This is hell, is anyone out there? 

Despite my urgent pleas, no one is opening the door for me. 

Is anyone there? 

Please, hear our cries. 

Hear the pain of us getting stepped on. Is anyone there? 

People are dying. My friend is dying also. 

I am calling and calling, why is there no answer? 

Is there really no one there? 

The Dutch poet Job Degenaar said, "The doors to prison must be open from the outside." I appeal to you 

to find many ways we can open the doors to North Korea. 

And when you mean people from the North once it becomes a free country, and they ask you "what have 

you done, as early beneficiaries of freedoms we did not have?" you have a good answer. 

Thank you. 
14

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Ji, thank you very much for that very moving 

and inspiring testimony and also your challenge to each of us to do 

more. 

There are all of us out there but there needs to be more of us 

and we need to raise our voices even more effectively and louder 

as we go forward. So thank you for that call. 

Ms. Hee. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HAN GA HEE (ALIAS), NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR, ANNOUNCER AND SOUND ENGINEER, FREE NORTH 

KOREA RADIO 

[The following statement and answers were delivered through an 

interpreter.] 

Ms. HEE. Hello. Thank you very much for this opportunity to be 

a witness in this hearing. 

My name is Han Ga Hee. I escaped from North Korea into China 

and in China I was human trafficked, and while being trafficked 

I was given a Bible and the Bible became my light, and eventually 

I found my way to South Korea and I am here before you. 

I am still living the fears that I had back in China. I had a knife 

put to my neck and the choice was either that I get married to a 

Chinese man living in the countryside or else. Those were the 

choices I had and those are the fears that I still live every night. 

I was caught three times and I was sold three times, and after 

the third time that I was human trafficked I found an escape. 

Since this was during winter time at minus 30 Celsius, I had escaped to ensure that my footprint would not be found. So I had to 

walk in the little stream that was there and as a result I had frostbite, and the frostbite keeps on reminding me of what happened. 

Every winter I get them back. 

However, this is not something that I myself am the only one living with. It’s something that many of the refugees from North 

Korea are living with and also especially true for children from 

North Korea. 

What I had led was a very harsh life and what I had to endure 

was very dreadful. But for me, there was hope. The hope came in 

the name of freedom, Free North Korea Radio. 

When I had initially heard the broadcasting on Free North Korea 

Radio, initially I had thought actually this was sort of a propagation by South Korea, possibly by the National Intelligence Service 

of the South Korean Government in order to lure North Koreans 

into South Korea. 

There is a movie that’s widely shown in North Korea. It’s called 

‘‘Psychological Warfare.’’ Basically, the story goes South Korean 

Government lures North Korean people into South Korea, takes 

their intelligence, and kills them all. 

When I watched the movie, I truly believed this was what was 

taking place, and not just me but I believe other North Koreans 

also believed that to be true. 

Well, one of the programs that was quite impressive to me when 

I heard in China broadcasted by Free North Korea Radio was 

about Seong Hye-rim. The title of the program was, ‘‘I am Friend 

of Seong Hye-rim.’’

15

Seong Hye-rim is a wife to Kim Jong-il, and in that program I 

heard about all the women that Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-song 

around them and all the womanizing that took place. It was a 

shock to me because these are the very people that we had worshipped while we were in North Korea but I came to realize that 

they were trash of human beings. 

And also, we had been told that Hwang Jang-yop, the Secretary, 

had been killed by commandoes sent by North Korea to South 

Korea. However, through the broadcasting we learned that he was 

alive and well and I heard his voice and many of the messages that 

he had sent for us. 

While I was living in China, hiding from the authorities, I really 

wanted freedom and I realized freedom was not free—that I could 

not just sit still and try to get freedom. I had to find my way to 

freedom. 

So what happened was in August 2008, I was given a compass 

and just a compass—that’s all I had—and I walked across the 

deserts of Mongolia. I believe it was Gobi Desert that I crossed and 

eventually ended up in South Korea. 

Even today, there are many North Koreans who are living in 

China and they want freedom. However, these people are in fear 

of the Chinese authorities who are repatriating these people to 

North Korea. 

And when these North Koreans are repatriated back into North 

Korea, what is waiting for them is not all that pleasant. Many 

would be sent to political prisons. Others would be tortured and 

some may even be executed. 

One time I was cut by the authorities and I was sent to a state 

security prison, and in the prison I stayed there for about 15 days. 

I recall there was a woman who was repatriated from China. 

She was pregnant and the guards yelled out that she was pregnant with impure blood, and I believe that she was beaten to the 

point where the pregnancy was terminated. 

However, the actual beating was not by the guards but at the 

command of the guards the North Korean men who were repatriated, these were the people who were forced into beating the 

woman, and what choice did these men have? 

Well, it’s laughable that on the World Human Rights Day that 

North Koreans would come out and say that they do respect human 

rights. 

Well, these are the people who still, to this date, are carrying out 

public executions and also they consider their residents less than 

logs or coals. 

Perhaps the biggest abuse of human rights by North Koreans 

would be starvation that North Korean people are having to suffer 

and also the nonprovision of the bare necessities that these people 

need to have as human beings. 

And let me speak briefly on my father, who had to have his legs 

amputated. He went to China looking for food for us. However, he 

was caught and later had to amputate his legs for some reasons. 

And why was it that he had to lose his legs? Well, after having 

been caught by the military, he was sent to a prison and at the 

prison actually he was facing the Tumen River on a certain night 

and he did not have anything on him. 

16

He was completely naked and he was forced to kneel looking toward the Tumen River. It was minus 30 degrees Celsius and he 

was beaten by a leather belt and thereafter he was left kneeling, 

looking toward the river, for the night and as a result he had frostbite and his legs had to be amputated. 

And after the amputation it didn’t take long for his life to be 

ended. It is laughable that they would have a declaration of human 

rights when the regime itself is carrying out all these atrocities including stratification of people into classes based on who they were 

born or based on their lineages and not even providing the basic 

necessities required for human beings. 

The ruthlessness of the North Korean regime has gotten even 

worse since Kim Jong-un has come into power in 2011. However, 

this tyranny cannot last forever. We know that. 

And the very reason why he carries out these politics of fear is 

because there is collapse that’s taking place internally in North 

Korea and this is very apparent by hearing from North Koreans 

who have escaped. One would be the very soldier who had escaped 

through the joint security area not too long ago and then there are 

other North Korean refugees who have been interviewed by our 

radio. 

And what we do at the Free North Korea Radio is to listen to 

the refugees. We use their voices and we compare the lives of 

North Koreans and South Koreans and also tell the truth about 

what takes place outside of North Korea. 

And what we do is we have network of people in North Korea 

including elites of North Korea who would be provide intelligence 

and information to us and those information are disseminated 

through broadcasting. 

Included in our activities are not just the broadcasting but also 

sending materials into North Korea by way of crossing the border 

between China and North Korea. 

We have sent many USBs, SD cards, CD players, and radios to 

North Korea, and of the refugees that have been surveyed, 5 to 10 

percent of the people have stated that they have actually heard 

broadcasting through Free North Korea Radio. 

When we are talking about North Korea, they are completely 

eliminating flow of information from outside. When you say 5 to 10 

percent of people have heard, that’s a lot of numbers. 

And also for 10 minutes per day we have music that’s played. 

But this is actually a play on words because we use the North Korean music but we change the lyrics so that it’s not about Kim 

Jong-un or Kim Jong-il any longer. 

For example, there would be music titled, ‘‘In My Father’s Footsteps’’ and we would switch the word father into Jesus, and also 

that ‘‘We trust in the general’’ the general would be changed into 

‘‘in our God.’’

By using the tunes that are familiar to North Koreans but 

changing the lyrics, it’s gotten easier for us to get the information 

into North Korea and into the heads of these people. 

My mother still remains in North Korea and I have heard 

through certain people that she’s doing okay and that she’s also 

worshiping the God that I believe in. 

17

So the sarcastic saying is that amongst North Korean people 

North Korea is known as a capitalistic society with a twist, and 

what that tells us is that there is tremendous internal collapse 

that’s taking place in North Korea. 

And that is why Kim Jong-un is ruling by fear. He knows that 

his control and grasp on North Korean people is slipping. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could just interrupt 1 second, and I would ask 

you to continue your testimony momentarily. 

Just to ask a couple of questions—I have to leave. One of my 

bills, H.R. 3655, is on the floor in about 5 or 10 minutes. I will 

come back as soon as it’s over. 

Dan Donovan, thankfully, has agreed to take the chair. So please 

come back. But I would want you and Ms. Ji to address, if you 

would, you have said that Kim Jong-un—it’s even worse. 

Suzanne Scholte, who is the sole Peace Prize Laureate who has 

testified numerous times before this and other committees of Congress, points out that it’s even worse under Xi Jinping because of 

his policies. 

So it’s worse in China. It’s worse in North Korea under Kim 

Jong-un. If you could elaborate on that it would be very helpful. 

If we were a panel of Chinese leaders, what would you say to 

them, especially it is illegal for them to forcibly repatriate North 

Korean defectors pursuant to the Refugee Convention to which, as 

we all know, they are signatories to. 

And finally, if you could speak to the issue of the cult of Kim—

the godlike cult that they—and Juche that they inculcate beginning 

from the earliest years. How did you break out from that, since the 

propaganda is ever present and all—other than the great work 

you’re doing, the information flow almost never happens during all 

of those formative years. So people come to believe that Kim is 

God—if you could speak to that. 

And I will have to read your answers on the transcript as I run 

off to this hearing. 

VOICE. Can she finish her prepared statement? 

Mr. SMITH. Of course. Please finish it. Exactly. 

Ms. HEE. And in times like this, it’s more important that we get 

the right information into North Korea so we need to make sure 

that there is a steady flow of information into North Korea so the 

people in North Korea would come to realize what is really taking 

place out there. 

And so my focus is really on information flow. We need to have 

more information, more truth be told to the people of North Korea, 

to have this information flowing into North Korea, and in this regard we seek help from the U.S. Government and the U.S. Congress. 

And I hope and I believe, once we have this information going 

into North Korea that the collapse of North Korea would be not in 

the distant future but tomorrow. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hee follows:]

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27811b-1.eps

Ms. Han Ga Hee 

North Korean Defector 

Announcer and Sound Engineer, Free North Korea Radio 

Honse Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International 

Organizations 

"Protecting North Korean Refugees" Tuesday, December 12,2017 

Good afternoon, everyone. 

Thank you so much for having me in this hearing to testify in front of honorable members of 

the Congress. 

My name is Han Ga-hee. 1 am a defector who met with God in China and could defect to 

South Korea because of His Grace. 

I was a victim of human trafticking. Throughout all those dark days of my life in China, the 

only light 1 saw was from the Bible which someone 1 met in China handed to me. 

When the trafiickers sold me to a Chinese man, and threatened me with a knife as 1 resisted, 1 

still could have hope and survive to get to the land of freedom, and I believe it was because I 

would not worship and pledge my allegiance to the Kim Regime in North Korea and sought 

my freedom in God. 

What I found in South Korea was truly shocking and overwhelming to me; the United States 

is not the evil invader who threatens North Korea, but on contrary, they are in the front line to 

fight for the freedom and human rights of North Koreans, my parents, brothers and sisters, 

and myself, who are living under the lies of the dictatorship. 

This is what I would have never known if I did not listen to Free North Korea Radio when I 

was in China. 

1 was an avid fan of Chinese and South Korean soap-operas even before 1left North Korea in 

2002, and also often listened to the radio broadcasting to North Korea, which was run by 

South Korean government back then. But it was not until few years later that 1 heard the 

familiar voices of North Korean defectors through the transistor radio. One day, through my 

defector friend at church, I heard about Free North Korea Radio, the independent radio 

station broadcasting to North Korea, just started their service, and while listening to their 

programs, I learned the term 'North Korean defector' for the first time. 

At first I thought it was a scheme of South Korean National Intelligence Service to lure North 

Koreans to get them to South Korea for propaganda purpose. 

The reason why I thought like that was because it was exactly the same plot of a propaganda 

movie called 'Operation Psychology'. The movie is about how the South Korean government 

lures North Koreans, takes all their important information and kills them. Without any doubt, 

I truly believed that the movie was a real story. Not only myself, but any North Korean who 

saw the movie would have the same thought. 

However, as I listened to the programs of Free North Korea Radio every day, listening to my 

fellow North Koreans speaking from Seoul to their friends and family in North Korea, my 
19


27811b-2.eps

suspicion melted away and I finally decided to defect to South Korea. 

The most impressive piece I have ever heard from Free North Korea Radio was the program 

called 'I was the friend of Seong Hye-rim', talking about Kim ll-sung and Kim Jong-il's 

affairs with many women. It divulged how corrupt and immoral, 'human trash' they were, 

which startled me who had naively worshiped and admired them as Great Father. The most 

shocking thing was hearing Hwang J ang-yop, the creator of the Juche Ideology, and of whom 

North Korean regime said in their propaganda had been assassinated by the South Korean 

government. But, he was alive and well and on the Free North Korea Radio's program and 

giving a speech. It was truly an eye-opening experience to learn about the world, and how 

blind Thad been. 

Then, Thad to decide hiding in dreadful fear of repatriation. My life was at the crossroads to 

death and life. T could stay in China, or T could fight for life and freedom which was not free. 

I believed that seeking freedom, although it could put my life in danger, was better than just 

hiding in China and waiting for death. So in Auf:,>Ust 2008, I left China to go to South Korea. 

Throughout my journey, Twas with my old Bible all the time. For me, it was hard to even 

understand what the words meant, but T read it through twice. And T prayed and prayed God 

to lead my way safe, and let me get to South Korea as soon as possible so that I could speak 

to my fellow North Koreans living under the darkness with my own voice and deliver the 

message of truth I crossed the Gobi Desert to get to Mongolia. All I had in my hands were a 

compass that the broker gave me and told me to just head North. When there seemed to be no 

road, God's love and grace led my way, and after eight months, T finally arrived in South 

Korea. 

The first thing T did after the arrival was to find whether Free North Korea Radio really 

existed. As T finished the resettlement training program, T visited the station. To my greatest 

surprise, it was actually run solely by North Korean defectors. 

Finding all the things I had known about the station were true, I decided to devote myself to 

its work to speak to my friends and family in North Korea. Back then, I had never even 

known what a computer was, but I determined to self-train to become a sound engineer, and 

since 2010 1 have been working at Free North Korea Radio as a sound engineer as well as an 

announcer. 

I know my work can put my family still living in North Korea at risk, but someone has to 

carry on this operation, and if 1 shun my work, the day which North Korea can rejoice with 

freedom and light might never come. 

'Freedom is not free ' This sentence which I saw at the Korean War Memorial here in 

Washington, D.C. is now the compass in my heart pointing the road to life, and makes me 

grateful for everything I am enjoying right now. 

There are so many things that I want to tell you today, but I understand there's a time limit. 

So I will stop here. Thank you so much for listening to my story. 

*Here below is the testimonies of North Korean defectors who decided to defect after 

listening to Free North Korea Radio, just like me. 

First of all, the strongest advantage of Free North Korea Radio over other radio stations 
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27811b-3.eps

comes from the fact that it is run by North Korean defectors; they know the North Koreans as 

well as the society the most and the best. The information they deliver to North Koreans 

comes from their own experiences living in both South and North Korean society. This is 

why their words explaining the truth about North Korean dictatorship is well received by the 

listeners. 

Since its first operation in 2004, Free North Korea Radio has the widest network of stringers 

in a variety of levels of North Korean society, covering from top level elites in the Central 

Party and government to ordinary citizens in the border areas. 

From such a network, Free North Korea Radio has covered several exclusives about North 

Korea, including the execution of Jang Sung-Thaek, the uncle of Kim Jong-un, and the 

currency reform in 2009. 

Also, according to the surveys of 100 to 200 recent defectors which Free North Korea Radio 

conducts two times a year, 5 to I 0 percent of respondents answer that they decided to defect 

after listening to Free North Korea Radio; some of them even give the specific titles of the 

programs that influenced them, such as 'South Korea, in the Eye of North Korean defectors', 

'A Diary of North Korean Defector Student' and 'The Last Woman of Kim Jong-il.' 

The respondents often say that the radio programs produced by South Korean broadcasting 

stations feel somewhat distant because of their South Korean accents, but the message Free 

North Korea Radio delivers is more easily received as it feels like one of their friends is 

talking to them. Also, after they listened to Free North Korea Radio's program on capitalism 

and market economy, young North Koreans started to compare the economic system they had, 

and even derided that North Korea is a country with a very unique capitalist system. 

Among our listeners, there are people who got to know God as they listened to the mission 

programs which airs 15 minutes every day. Also, like myself, there are North Korean 

refugees in China who call to the station to ask for help to come to South Korea. Free North 

Korea Radio has been actively engaged in rescues of these North Korean refugees. 

Lastly, I also attach the pictures on Free North Korea Radio's operation in the last year. 

hope this information would give the idea to US Congress about how actively the station has 

been working to create greater information inflow to North Korea. 

I sincerely hope that the US government and US Congress can help North Korean defector 

organizations, who are at the frontier of sending in information to North Korea, and who are 

working vigorously in order to bring freedom to North Koreans and end the oppression they 

live under because of the Kim dictatorship. 

Thank you very much. 
21

Mr. DONOVAN [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Hee. 

I am not too sure if you remember the chairman’s questions. He 

wanted those answered. So he could read the transcript. 

So I’d ask Ms. Ji if you would answer the chairman’s questions 

first and then, Ms. Hee, you can answer the questions as well. 

Ms. JI. So I’ll answer the congressman’s second part of the question, which was if Chinese leaders were sitting in front of me how 

I would address them, and the first thing I would tell them is that 

the Chinese Government must stop the policy of forced repatriation 

of North Korean defectors back to North Korea. 

And North Korean defector women have become sort of a commodity in the sense that when they are being led away by unscrupulous Chinese brokers, the Chinese security apparatus members, 

some of them they will intercept this transaction and they themselves will get involved with the human trafficking and, in turn, 

sell the women to the highest bidder to other brokers. So this is 

happening in China right now among the security people of China. 

And I myself explain exactly that. I was actually in the process 

of being sold by the Chinese security officials. But because I was 

screaming and resisting so much, that’s how I was able to escape 

when they were sort of stunned at my resistance that I showed to 

them when I was undergoing this treatment. 

North Korean defector women are not commodity. They are not 

material goods. They are human beings. And the fact that the Chinese Government officials—security officials—are—some of them 

are being involved with this is something that the international 

community should not forget or forgive. 

And the second thing that I would tell the Chinese officials if 

they were sitting in front of me in this room would be that the 

North Korean defector women who are forced to marry the Chinese 

men, the mothers themselves are basically stateless. 

But when they become pregnant by the so-called Chinese husband, the children that they bear they are stateless too. They have 

no identity. They don’t exist, according to the Chinese Government. 

And in China right now, the mothers of these children, many of 

them have been repatriated back to North Korea. 

So you have a lot of kids who are either orphans or who do not 

have mothers or they basically are not cared for. So a lot of these 

children born to Chinese fathers and North Korean defector women 

are living in a very difficult situation in China right now. 

And what I would desire is that either process these children to 

be sent to South Korea or grant them some sort of identification 

or citizenship in China to these children born to Chinese husbands 

and North Korean defector mothers. 

And lastly, I would urge the Chinese Government to keep its 

promise as a signatory to the convention relating to status of refugees and to faithfully carry out its duties as a signatory to that 

convention by protecting the North Korean defectors that come into 

China instead of repatriating them. 

Lastly, I would say, as I mentioned in my testimony, North Korean defectors, when they are repatriated from China to North 

Korea, they face unspeakable inhumane treatment, sometimes even 

death, at the hands of the North Korean authorities. 

22

So the Chinese Government should accept the North Korean defectors that come to China and process them to be sent to South 

Korea. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Hee, would you mind answering the chairman’s questions? 

Ms. HEE. You ask how the current Kim Jong-un regime is different from the previous Kim Jong-il regime. 

Well, he is ruling by fear and it’s very much of a fear that’s being 

put into the minds of North Koreans. Kim Jong-un is a child who 

does not know the season and who in their right mind would want 

to go up against a superpower that is the U.S. and threaten the 

U.S. with nuclear capabilities that are not even completely mature? 

Well, my mom tells me when Kim Jong-il was in power, when 

celebratory occasions, on holidays, that there would be rationing 

provided by the government. But now that Kim Jong-un is in 

power, we don’t have any rationing at all on any occasion. 

And the rule of fear or rule by fear is one strike, you’re out. 

There are no generosities to be exhibited. We are not aware of any 

government upon change of power to have over 300 elites of the 

government be publicly executed by way of air guns. Actually, that 

would be anti-aircraft artillery. And why? Why does he do that? 

Because he wants to rule by fear and this is the way he does it. 

And Kim Jong-un will continue to rule by fear. The way we will 

be able to stop the rule by fear is not by restraining him but alerting and raising the awareness amongst North Korean people as to 

what’s taking place outside, epically true about South Korea—how 

much of a freedom and economic prosperity that we live in. 

And tying into the question about China, well, in order for us to 

be able to stop this ruling by fear, the pressure should not be on 

North Korea alone. The pressure should also be on China. 

What is true before is also true now, that China and the Chinese 

people would say that they are pressuring North Korea. No pressure there. 

Do you know why Chinese authorities repatriate North Koreans 

back to North Korea? For each person that’s repatriated there is 

a return. They get logs and they get coal. 

The way I was caught by the Chinese authorities was an informant talked about me and I understand that that informant was getting 2,000 Chinese yuan. So per report that they make, they get 

2,000 yuan. 

So when I was caught by the Chinese authorities, who are known 

as Gong An, I asked them why do you have to take me and why 

do you need to send me back to North Korea and what one of the 

officers had told me was that he had to make a living and this was 

an agreement between the governments. 

They know very well that once we are repatriated we will be suffering at the hands of North Korean guards. So the basic idea—

there is a math—that we may die once we get back to North Korea 

but Chinese people would be getting the logs and coal. 

So about 70 percent of the North Korean territory and the seas 

are really actually mined by the Chinese people. So when that is 

true, would Chinese people really want to put the pressure on 

North Korea and would they really want unification on the Peninsula? 

23

So we can talk all day and we can have all these slogans asking 

for Chinese to put more pressure on North Korea. But these would 

be empty slogans. Nothing would come of them. We need to have 

real pressure that can be felt by the Chinese people. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you very much. Thank you, both of you, for 

your opening statements. Thank you for sharing your horrific experiences with us. 

I’d just like to ask one or two questions and then we have a second panel, and you’ve been sitting there graciously for over an hour 

for us. 

About 70 percent of the people, refugees from North Korea, are 

women. Why is that? Why do you feel most of the refugees are 

women? 

Ms. HEE. It’s a strange question to answer but it’s a good question nevertheless, because we don’t know why. But in North Korea 

we have more women than men. 

And also men are serving in the military. It’s mandatory. They 

have to serve for 13 years. So when you are stuck in a system for 

13 years you’re not getting out easy. 

For a woman, once we escape to China we have other means for 

making a living. We can work in restaurants and we may even be 

trafficked. But still, we get to eat. But that does not happen for 

men. There are not a lot of things that they can do in China and 

also once they go to China they get captured a lot easier. It’s just 

simply very hard for men to hide in China. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you very much. 

I would just ask you, you were talking about when women refugees then marry a Chinese man and have a baby, is the baby repatriated back with the mother back to North Korea once you’re captured and if so, is there a difference if the child is a boy compared 

to if the child is a girl? 

Ms. JI. I myself personally did not witness the children born to 

defector women and Chinese fathers being repatriated together 

with the North Korean defector women. 

However, I am aware that there are cases where the children 

born to—even though I haven’t seen it myself, I am aware that 

that does happen where the children born to the defector women 

and the Chinese fathers are—if they are arrested together are sent 

back—repatriated back to North Korea. 

And regardless of whether that child is a boy or girl, there is no 

difference in the eyes of the North Korean regime, and usually they 

are sent to an orphanage and the mothers are sent to a re-education prison camp for punishment. 

Mr. DONOVAN. I was curious if the Chinese saw a difference between a boy being born to a Chinese man. 

Ms. JI. The Chinese family members of the husband, if the mother—the defector woman—gives birth to a boy, they prefer sons, obviously. So they would prevent the mother from getting pregnant 

again because if they have a boy then they are satisfied. 

That’s what they would want, to just keep it at that in terms of 

the viewpoint of the Chinese family and the Chinese husband. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Before I yield to Mr. Castro, if I could just ask 

each of you—I think you touched on it in your opening statement, 

24

Ms. Hee—but what would you like to see the United States Government do? 

Ms. JI. Well, first of all, I would like to thank the U.S. Government for its great interest and concern for the North Korean 

human rights issue and also for, in recent days, pressing for the 

increase and stronger sanctions to punish the North Korean regime. 

So I would like to express, first of all, my appreciation for that 

position taken by the U.S. Government in terms of dealing with the 

North Korean regime. 

But I believe a stronger sanctions enforcement should be put in 

place by the U.S. Government toward the North Korean regime. 

And in addition to strengthening sanctions against the regime, 

the U.S. Government should expand and increase the activities of 

information dissemination into North Korea, and the latest ways 

that the U.S. can do that is to provide internet by using satellite, 

for example, and that’s one way that the U.S. Government can help 

bring outside information to the North Korean people directly, bypassing the regime’s control. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Ms. Hee. 

Ms. HEE. Would it be okay if I were to address an earlier question about repatriation of kids? 

Mr. DONOVAN. Yes. Certainly. 

Ms. HEE. Yes, that does take place in China. So under two separate scenarios, one would be if, as a mother, you are caught on the 

streets with your child, then you would both get repatriated. And 

also, if there is a raid and the child does not want to detach itself 

from the mother, then they both get repatriated. 

And who actually does the repatriation? The Chinese Government. That’s what they do. They are smiling behind their curtains, 

and we have all these slogans—all these empty slogans that are 

not heard by anybody in China. 

Mr. DONOVAN. My last question the committee would like to have 

at least on the record about reports recently that the Chinese Government is building at least five refugee camps along the border. 

I am curious whether your sources can confirm that and what you 

think that may mean. 

Ms. HEE. I believe that’s in the news but I don’t believe that was 

confirmed yet and through our sources we have not been able to 

confirm it. So maybe it’s not happening. 

Ms. JI. So I myself, even though I’ve heard of those reports of 

the Chinese Government supposedly building these facilities, I 

don’t know for sure but I do know for a fact that through people 

that have contacted me from inside China and other sources that 

the Chinese Government, they fear a rush of North Korean people 

escaping from North Korea in case there is a war or some sort of 

major event happening. 

So to prevent that that the Chinese Government on the Chinese 

side of the border they have reinforced the surveillance and the security in the region, for example, putting up more electrified fences 

and strengthening on the Chinese side their mechanisms to prevent North Koreans from crossing over in case of a major event. 

Mr. DONOVAN. I thank you both for your diligence and the chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Castro. 

25

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you. Thank you for your courage and your 

bravery and also for coming here to testify today. 

I have a question about the families that are left behind after 

people leave North Korea, after they defect. How are those family 

members treated after people leave North Korea? 

Ms. HEE. I escaped alone. I have my family still in North Korea. 

I think my family is still safe. That’s because North Korean authorities do not really know that I am here. 

So I have also feared for the safety of my family and so I have 

thus far not worked in the open. So in November of this year, I had 

a teleconversation with my mom and I told mom that I would like 

to do more activities in the open regarding human rights, and this 

would bring about unification on the Korean Peninsula sooner, I 

told her. 

But I also told her I was very much in fear for her welfare. And 

what my mom told me was that each day it’s becoming harder for 

her to breathe and that she would die one way or another. 

She didn’t care, and she told me that I should do what I thought 

was the right thing to do. And that is why I am now in the open 

for 8 years working for Free North Korea Radio. No one knew of 

my identity. Now, perhaps, they do. 

Mr. CASTRO. And you live in South Korea now? 

Ms. HEE. Yes. 

Mr. CASTRO. Okay. I have a follow-up question but I wanted to 

give you an opportunity to answer the same question. 

Ms. JI. So as I mentioned in my testimony, all my family members are with me in South Korea except for my father, who has 

been missing for the past 19 years, and I have been able to get in 

touch with my aunt, who is still in North Korea. I have been able 

to send her money and also every once in a while call her as well. 

But it’s been about 10 years since I’ve been an active human 

rights activist out in the open. I’ve written two books already. 

But it’s been more than a year that I have had trouble trying to 

get in touch with my aunt. So perhaps the regime has finally 

caught up to what I am doing and perhaps did something to my 

aunt. I don’t know. But it’s been hard for me to get in touch with 

my aunt. 

Mr. CASTRO. You don’t know if she’s been punished or what happened? 

Ms. JI. So I was able to send somebody through, using brokers 

and through sending money to send somebody to my aunt’s house 

in her village. But the report I got back was that the house was 

empty. There was nobody at the house. So something happened to 

my aunt. I just don’t know exactly what happened to her. 

Mr. CASTRO. And are you living in Seoul now or in South Korea? 

Ms. JI. Yes, I am living in South Korea. 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, I have a question for both of you. 

One of the goals for a long time for the people of South Korea 

and, I imagine, many people in North Korea has been for unification of what for decades now has been two separate countries. 

And I asked the same question of another defector when we did 

a larger Foreign Affairs panel—the main committee panel—a few 

months ago. 

26

Is reunification realistic, given the fact that these countries have 

been separate countries now for many decades and you have now 

seen both societies—both North Korea and South Korea. 

How significant are the differences? Can those differences be 

bridged for reunification? 

Ms. JI. So as you mentioned, I did experience both life in North 

Korea and now I am living in South Korea, and North Korea is a 

Communist regime and South Korea is a free market capitalist society. 

And for me, upon my first time being in South Korea as I started 

my resettlement it was very difficult for me to adjust to a life of 

freedom and a free market capitalist environment. 

However, after some time I was able to adjust very well into this 

democratic free society in South Korea and so far there have been 

up to around 32,000 North Korean defectors that have resettled in 

South Korea and out of the 32,000 defectors I would say about 80 

percent of those defectors in South Korea like myself are able to 

send money to our relatives and family members in North Korea. 

So I have heard from not only the sources in North Korea but 

from other sources as well that many North Korean people in 

North Korea who have family members in South Korea have been 

aware that South Korea is a country that is rich, that is abundant, 

and that South Korean products are sought after, and that in some 

cases the high-ranking officials even want to marry off their children to family members of North Koreans who have people that 

have escaped to South Korea because that means they are able to 

get money from their relatives in South Korea. 

So that’s been the sort of shift that’s happened in North Korea 

regarding their views on South Korea and South Koreans. 

And you mentioned the differences between North Korea and 

South Korea. So I would say that even though North Korea may 

be a Communist system on the outside, but inside the people, because of the emerging markets and because of the capitalist ventures started by many citizens in North Korea, many North Korean 

citizens are more aware of and they have become very well attuned 

to the free market capitalist ideals that we would find in South 

Korea, for example. 

And I personally believe that this may lead to a quicker fall of 

the regime and an even faster reunification of the two Koreas in 

the Korean Peninsula. 

Mr. CASTRO. I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you. 

I want to thank our very distinguished and courageous panel for 

your testimony and, above all, for your life’s work, which has been 

extraordinary. 

And some day, when North Koreans are free you will be among 

the true heroes who helped make it happen. So thank you so very 

much. 

Ms. JI. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Dan, thank you. 

I would like to now welcome our second panel, if I could, to the 

witness table, beginning first with Ambassador Robert King, and I 

want to say a big welcome back to Dr. King, who, for so many 

27

years, sat over here with Tom Lantos as his top chief of staff. So 

it’s great to have Ambassador King back. 

He, as I think most will know, was our special envoy for North 

Korean human rights issues from 2009 to 2017. Since leaving the 

department he is senior advisor to the Korea chair at the Center 

for Strategic and International Studies. 

For 25 years—a quarter of a century—from ’83 to ’08 Ambassador King served as chief of staff to Congressman Tom Lantos 

when Mr. Lantos became ranking minority member and then chair 

of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Dr. King served as committee staff director, and that was from 

’01 to 2008. In addition to his full time jobs, Dr. King has taught 

courses in U.S. foreign policy and international relations at the 

University of Southern California German study program, Brigham 

Young University study abroad program, American University in 

Washington, DC, New England College in New Hampshire. 

Ambassador King is the author of five books and over 40 articles 

on international relations topics. We welcome him back again to 

the committee. 

I would like to then welcome and introduce Greg Scarlatoiu with 

the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. He’s the executive director of the committee. 

He has coordinated 20 HRNK publications addressing North Korea’s human rights situation and the operation of its regime. He is 

a visiting professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 

Seoul as well as instructor and coordinator of the Korean Peninsula 

and Japan class at the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service 

Institute. 

Prior to HRNK, Mr. Scarlatoiu was with the Korea Economic Institute. He has over 6 years of experience in international development on projects by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the Asia Development Bank. 

In 14 years he has authored and broadcast weekly in the Korean 

language. It’s called the Scarlatoiu Column and it’s with Radio 

Free Asia. 

A seasoned lecturer on Korean issues, Mr. Scarlatoiu is a frequent commentator for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, 

Radio Free Asia, and other media operations. He has appeared as 

an expert witness at several congressional hearings on North Korean human rights and so we welcome him back today as well. 

And our third distinguished panelist will be Suzanne Scholte, 

who is also making a trip back and in the past has provided expert 

witnesses to this subcommittee and other committees of Congress 

including, as I mentioned earlier, the first women who were ever 

trafficked that came forward and spoke at a congressional hearing—trafficked, that is, from North Korea into China—and it was 

extraordinarily moving testimony. 

She is considered one of the world’s leading activists in the North 

Korean human rights movement. She has spent the past two decades promoting the freedom and dignity of the North Korean people and is currently president of the Defense Forum Foundation, a 

nonprofit foundation promoting a strong national defense and freedom, democracy, and human rights abroad. 

28

In 1996, she began a program to host the first North Korean defectors in the United States, giving them a voice to speak out about 

atrocities being committed against the people of North Korea including the political prison camps and the horrific treatment of refugees. 

She has led international efforts to pressure China to end their 

horrific repatriation policy and has been involved in the rescue of 

hundreds of North Koreans escaping their country. 

Currently, she also serves as the chairwoman of the North Korea 

Freedom Coalition, vice co-chair of the Committee for Human 

Rights in North Korea, and honorary chair of the Free North Korea 

Radio. 

I welcome all three of our distinguished panelists and I yield the 

floor to Dr. King. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT KING, SENIOR ADVISER, KOREA CHAIR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (FORMER U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR 

NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES) 

Mr. KING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

It’s a pleasure to be back with you again. Usually I sat on the 

other side behind you and Mr. Lantos. It’s a different position to 

be down here today but I am glad to be ‘‘home.’’

I want to thank you for your focus on human rights and for what 

you have done with the subcommittee in terms of calling attention 

to these issues and problems. 

I want to commend you on the caliber of the witnesses—the 

other witnesses that have testified today. It was extremely helpful 

to have these two women who have, at great difficulty, been able 

to leave North Korea and talk about their experiences, and again, 

it’s a pleasure to be here with Greg and with Suzanne to talk about 

these issues. 

Refugees or defectors who have chosen to leave North Korea is 

one of the key issues in the broader question of human rights in 

the North. 

There has been a steady flow of defectors from the North since 

the famine of the late 1990s. Over the last two decades, some 

30,000 North Koreans have fled the country. The vast majority 

have resettled in South Korea. 

The concern of Americans to help these defectors from the North 

was one of the principal factors behind the adoption of the North 

Korea Human Rights Act in 2004. 

Since the adoption of that legislation, the State Department and 

other Federal agencies have helped some 250 North Korean refugees resettle in the United States. 

Most refugees, however, have chosen to settle in South Korea because of the familiarity of language and culture, as well as to join 

family members who are already there. 

The number of refugees leaving North Korea annually has recently declined. The high point, in about 2011, was some 3,000 annually. 

But tighter control of the borders by the North and difficulty getting through China has caused that number to fall to less than 

29

1,500 last year. The numbers this year look like they will be even 

lower. 

Virtually all defectors who flee North Korea today do so through 

China. Very, very few have been able to cross the inner-Korean 

border. 

A few weeks ago we saw a very rare exception when a North Korean soldier was seriously wounded as he tried to escape and fled 

through the DMZ. 

This indicates both the danger and how uncommon it is for defectors to go directly from the North into South Korea. 

For those who escape through China, there are very serious problems from being trafficked, sold as virtual slaves, or being returned 

to the North. 

In the past, when relations were good between China and North 

Korea, most defectors captured in China were quickly returned to 

North Korea where they were sent to brutal re-education camps 

that earlier witnesses have talked about here. 

A couple of years ago, I had a particularly memorable conversation in South Korea with a young women who had fled the North. 

She was finally able to reach the South. 

I asked her if this had been her first attempt. She said, ‘‘Oh, no. 

This was my sixth try.’’ Five times previously, she sought to leave. 

Five times she was captured either in North Korea before she left 

or as she crossed into China. 

She was returned to North Korean authorities and spent many 

months each time in a re-education camp where she was brutally 

treated. 

On her sixth attempt, she and a friend who was going to leave 

with her, decided to go but they also decided to take with them poison tablets. Rather than be forcibly returned again and sent to a 

re-education camp they would have taken their own lives. 

In the past, Mr. Chairman, when Chinese relations with South 

Korea have been good and China’s relationship with the North has 

been strained, defectors have been allowed to go to South Korea. 

A couple of years ago in a very highly unusual arrangement, 

China allowed some 13 or 14 North Korean restaurant workers to 

fly directly from China to South Korea where they were resettled. 

A year or so ago, however, after the United States, with the cooperation and approval of the South Korean Government, established a THAAD missile battery in the South, this led to strained 

relations between China and South Korea. 

Since that time, it has, again, been more difficult for defectors 

from the North to reach South Korea through China. 

The United States Government has strongly supported South Korean efforts to assist defectors reach the South. On many occasions, 

I personally raised with senior Chinese Government officials our 

concern that defectors be permitted to flee the North, if that was 

their wish. 

I know that other, more senior State Department officials have 

also raised this matter with senior Chinese officials. 

Mr. Chairman, it’s important that the United States continue to 

urge China to allow defectors to resettle elsewhere and if they wish 

to go to the South, our Government should continue to support 

South Korean Government efforts to help those people. 

30

Congressional support for refugees such as through the reauthorization of the North Korea Human Rights Act is important, and I 

urge approval of that reauthorization legislation. It has already 

been adopted in the House. It’s now awaiting action in the Senate. 

But it’s urgent and it’s important that the legislation be reauthorized. 

A second matter that I was asked to talk about was the issue of 

providing free and unfettered information to the people of North 

Korea. The availability of accurate information about events beyond the borders in the North is extremely important to the North 

Korean people. 

Information limits Pyongyang’s ability to manipulate its own citizens, and we must continue to encourage the free flow of information into North Korea. Although it is illegal to own a radio or television capable of being tuned to stations other than the official government station, based on survey research we estimate that as 

many as a third of North Koreans listen to foreign radio broadcasts, particularly programs from Voice of America and Radio Free 

Asia funded by U.S. congressional appropriations. 

These are extremely important. There are other creative and innovative programs which we fund—the U.S. Government funds—

to get digital information to the North Korean people. These efforts 

need to be fully funded, encouraged, and expanded. 

Mr. Chairman, military options against North Korea are severely 

limited. But one thing that we can do that will encourage positive 

change in the North is to increase the flow of accurate information 

from the outside world. 

Our human rights efforts are an important aspect of our policy 

toward North Korea. We must not underestimate the value and importance of those efforts. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to any 

questions that you have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]

31


27811d-1.eps

Testimony of 

Ambassador Robert R. King 

Senior Ad1>isor to the Korea Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies 

am/former U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights Issues 

Hearing on "Protecting North Korean Refugees" 

Subcommittee on Afrim, Global Health, and Human Rights 

House Foreign A/fairs Committee 

December 12,2017 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Members of the CommitteeIt is a great pleasure for me to testify before this Subcommittee. It is almost nine years since I 

left the House Foreign Affairs Committee staff to join the Department of State. During the 25 

years that I was chief of staff to Congressman Tom Lantos, a good portion of that time was also 

spent as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee stati It is nice to come "home." 

I want to thank you for your focus on human rights issues. I respect your commitment to human 

rights around the world. When I was chief of staff to Congressman Lantos, he was Ranking 

Member during a part of the time you were Chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee. I 

remember some of the marathon hearings you held on human rights issues. 

Mr. Chainnan, I want to commend you on the caliber of the other witnesses you have invited to 

testify today. It was extremely helpful to hear from these defectors who left North Korea and 

found refuge elsewhere. Also on this panel, Greg Scarlatoiu, the Executive Director of the 

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, has produced a series of extremely important 

studies on human rights abuses in the North. Suzanne Scholte has been an energetic voice for 

aiding North Korean defectors and mobilizing opinion against the abuses of the DPRK. lt is an 

honor for me to appear with them. 

The issue of refugees or "defectors" who have chosen to leave North Korea is the principal topic 

of the hearing today. It is also a key issue in dealing with the broader issue of human rights in 

the North. There has been a steady flow of defectors from the North since the famine in the late 

1990s. Initially the refugees were desperate, starving people looking for work opportunities in 

China. Many of them subsequently went on to South Korea. Over the last two decades some 

30,000 North Koreans have fled the North and have resettled in South Korea. 

The interest of Americans in helping defectors from the North and the Congressional focus on 

this issue was the principal factor behind the adoption of the North Korea Human Rights Act in 

2004 and its subsequent reauthorization. Provisions of that legislation called for Federal 

assistance to defectors who sought to t1ee to America. Since that legislation was adopted, the 

State Department and other Federal agencies have helped some 250 North Korean refugees 
32


27811d-2.eps

Te,timony ofRoberr R. King 

''Protecting North Korean Refitgees .. 

Pagel 

resettle in the United States. Most refugees, however, have chosen to settle in South Korea 

because of the familiar language and culture, as well as family members already living there. 

The number of refugees leaving the North annually has recently declined. The high point of 

nearly 3,000 was reached in 2011, but tighter control of the borders by the North has reduced 

that number to less than 1,500 last year, and numbers thus far this year look to be even lower. 

Virtually all defectors flee the North through China. Only a very few have fled across the interKorean border. The rare exception a few weeks ago was a North Korean soldier, who was 

seriously wounded as he escaped across the border. That indicates the danger as well as how 

uncommon it is for defectors to go directly from the North to South Korea. 

For defectors who escape through China, there are other issues. China has a mixed record with 

Korean defectors. When relations were good between China and North Korea, most defectors 

who were captured in China were quickly returned to North Korea, where they were brutalized 

and sent to reeducation camps to discourage others from attempting to leave. 

I remember one poignant conversation I had in South Korea with a young woman who fled the 

North and was finally able to reach the South. I asked her if this had been her first attempt She 

said, "No. 1t was my sixth try." Five time she sought to leave, and she was captured before she 

reached the border in the North or after she crossed into China. She was returned to North 

Korean authorities and spent months each time in a reeducation camp where she was brutally 

treated. On her sixth attempt, she and a friend, who agreed to make another attempt with her, 

decided to take poison pills with them. Rather than be forcibly returned again and sent to a 

reeducation camp, they would have taken their own lives. 

At times, when Chinese relations with South Korea have been good and China's relationship 

with the North was strained, the Chinese have allowed North Korea defectors to go to the South. 

A couple of years ago in a highly unusual arrangement, the Chinese allowed some 14 North 

Korean restaurant workers to fly directly from China to South Korea where they resettled. 

A year or two ago, however, a THAAD missile battery was placed in the South by the U.S. with 

South Korean government cooperation. This led to strained relations between China and the 

South. Since that time, it has again been more difficult for defectors from the North to reach the 

South through China. I am hopeful that the recent indications of better ties between Beijing and 

Seoul will lead to easier conditions for defectors to pass through China. 

The United States government has taken a strong interest in North Korean defectors being able to 

leave if they wish to do so. Although I am no longer at the Department of State, during the seven 

years that I was there from 2009 to early 2017, we strongly supported the South Korean efiort to 

assist defectors to reach the South. On many occasions, I personally raised with senior Chinese 

government ot1icials the U.S. concern that defectors be permitted to go to the South if that was 
33


27811d-3.eps

Te,timony ofRoberr R. King 

''Protecting North Korean Refitgees .. 

Page3 

their wish. I know that other more senior State Department officials also raised this matter with 

the Chinese during that time. 

Mr. Chainnan, it is important that the United States continue to urge China to allow defectors to 

resettle elsewhere. Some will wish to come to the United States, but as we have seen the number 

is small. If they wish to go to the South, the United States should do all we can to support South 

Korean etJorts. Indications of Congressional support for these refugees-such as through the 

reauthorization of the North Korea Human Rights Act-are important, and l urge approval of 

that legislation. It has already been adopted by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. 

A second matter that I was asked to discuss is the issue of providing infonnation to the people of 

North Korea. We must continue to encourage the free flow ofinfonnation into North Korea. 

The availability of accurate infonnation about events beyond the borders of the North is an 

extremely important in order to limit the regime's ability to manipulate its own people. 

Despite the fact that it is illegal to own a radio capable of being tuned to stations other than the 

official government mouthpiece, we estimate, based on survey research, that as many as one 

third ofNorth Koreans listen to foreign radio broadcasts. Programs from Voice of America and 

Radio Free Asia that are funded by Congressional appropriations are an extremely important 

source of information reaching the North. There are also creative and innovative programs 

ti.mded by the United States to get digital information to the North Korean people. These need to 

be encouraged and expanded. 

Mr. Chainnan, military actions against North Korea are severe! y limited. But one thing that we 

can do that will encourage positive change is to increase the flow of accurate information from 

the outside into theN orth. Our human rights etJorts are an important aspect of our policy toward 

North Korea. We must not underestimate the importance of these efforts. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to participate in this heating today. 

look forward to any questions you and the Committee members may have. 
34

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ambassador King. 

Mr. Scarlatoiu. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GREG SCARLATOIU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH 

KOREA 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to 

testify before you and the subcommittee today. It is a true honor 

and a privilege. 

The most critical challenge our country faces today is the nuclear 

and ballistic missile threat posed by the regime of Kim Jong-un. 

Grateful for the subcommittee’s unabated determination to protect North Korean refugees in China, I respectfully urge you to continue to consider the vital importance of formulating and adopting 

a robust human rights policy including a North Korean refugee 

protection policy that can be integrated into U.S. security policy toward both China and North Korea’s Kim regime. 

In 2014, China received a warning by the U.N. Commission of 

Inquiry that its policy of forcefully repatriating North Korean refugees could potentially amount to aiding and abetting North Korean 

perpetrators of crimes against humanity. 

China has been put on notice that its policies, practices, and support for North Korea are unacceptable. Yet, at the fourth annual 

U.N. Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North 

Korea held yesterday, China called for a procedural vote to stop the 

public meeting. 

This effort failed but China persists in its efforts to support the 

Kim regime as evidenced by its forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees. 

Up to 80 percent of North Korean refugees in China are women. 

In the absence of any semblance of protection, they fall victim to 

human traffickers and other criminals. 

Many of those forced into sexual bondage under the guise of marriage with Chinese men in rundown rural areas are often abused 

by the would-be spouse and the entire family. 

Their children’s human security is beyond precarious. China denies North Korean children the right to education, health, and personal security as well as liberty when they are detained, awaiting 

forcible repatriation. 

Our 2015 HRNK report, ‘‘The Hidden Gulag IV,’’ documents the 

particular vulnerabilities of North Korean women jailed in a network of political prison camps—kwan-li-so—and labor camps—kyohwa-so. 

Increasingly, these facilities house women who have attempted to 

flee the country and here rates of mortality, malnutrition, forced 

labor, and exploitation are high. 

China does not uphold its obligations under international law, as 

evidenced by the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees in 

need of protection. 

China denies many North Koreans the ability to apply for asylum or have safe passage to the Republic of Korea or other countries. China claims that North Koreans are illegal economic migrants. 

35

In reality, however, not only are North Koreans targeted for escaping the totalitarian state, but they are targeted by the Chinese 

Government and ultimately victimized again once repatriated to 

North Korea and imprisoned. It truly is a vicious cycle of political 

oppression and violence perpetrated against countless innocents. 

Mr. Chairman, I respectfully recommend the following. First, the 

United States should urge China to immediately halt its forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees and thus fulfill its obligations 

under international treaties and customary international law. 

Second, the United States should call upon China to allow the 

U.N. High Commission for Refugees unimpeded access to North 

Koreans inside China to determine whether they are refugees and 

whether they require assistance. 

Third, the United States should call upon China to adopt legislation incorporating its international obligations under the Refugee 

Convention and the Convention Against Torture. 

It should be expected to declare and uphold a moratorium on deportations of North Koreans until its laws and practices are 

brought into line with international standards. 

Fourth, the United States should call upon China to recognize 

the legal status of North Koreans who marry or who have children 

with Chinese citizens and to ensure that all such children are 

granted resident status and access to education and other public 

services in accordance with both Chinese law and international 

standards. 

Fifth, in the absence of a Chinese response the issue should be 

brought before international refugee and human rights fora. 

UNHCR’s executive committee as well as the U.N. Human 

Rights Council and General Assembly of the United Nations should 

all be expected to call on China by name to carry out its obligations 

under refugee and human rights law and enact legislation to codify 

these obligations. 

Sixth, the United States should promote a multilateral approach 

to the problem of North Koreans leaving their country based on the 

principles of non-refoulement and human rights and humanitarian 

protection. 

Building on the precedent of other refugee populations, international burden sharing should be developed to protect North Koreans seeking to escape the tyranny of the Kim regime. 

Seventh, following the passage of the North Korean Human 

Rights Reauthorization Act of 2017, which mandates the position 

of the special envoy for North Korean human rights, I respectfully 

urge the U.S. Congress to encourage the prompt appointment of a 

qualified candidate. 

I strongly believe that this particular issue merits the full time 

high-profile focus across various agencies that the special envoy 

has so effectively brought and would continue to bring. 

And eighth, and finally, additional funds should be appropriated 

for clandestine information flows into North Korea, for nongovernmental organizations working to improve human rights in North 

Korea, and for the resettlement of North Korean refugees in the 

United States. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scarlatoiu follows:]

36


27811c-1.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

Statement of Greg Scarlatoin, Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North 

Korea (HRNK), on "Protecting North Korean Refugees" at the Hearing of the 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International 

Organizations, Dec~mber 12, 2017 

Good afternoon Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, and members of the Subcommittee. 

Thank you for the invitation to testify before you today. It is a true honor and a privilege. 

My name is Greg Scarlatoiu. I am the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in 

North Korea (HRNK). We are a nonpartisan research organization headquartered in Washington, 

DC that conducts original research on North Korean human rights issues. Over the last 16 years, 

we have published over 30 reports available at HRNKORG, documenting for the world the 

horrifying truth about the extent of human rights abuses in North Korea. Our work has played a 

central role in assisting and infonning the efforts of the US State Department, the UN 

Commission of Inquiry, and numerous other stakeholders who care passionately about the rights 

of people in North Korea. Most recently, the report submitted by UN Secretary General Antonio 

Guterres to the UN General Assembly on August 28th quoted one ofHRNK's publications. 

On behalf of HRNK, thank you for your time and interest in the plight of North Korean refugees, 

an ongoing human rights issue and crisis perpetuated by both North Korea and China today. The 

protection of North Korean refugees relates to fundamental human rights, human dignity, and 

state obligations under international law. 

On the current situation of North Korean refugees in China 

In July 2017, a North Korean refugee family of five, on their way to the Republic of Korea, 

committed suicide while in Chinese custody awaiting forcible repatriation to North Korea. More 

recently in November, reports by BBC Korea stated that China forcibly returned a group often 

refugees to North Korea, including a mother and her four-year-old son. This information comes 

from a Mr. Lee, the husband and father of these two victims, currently hiding in China. 

For the past few years, among the interns trained at HRNK we have also worked with forrner 

North Korean refugees, currently holding South Korean citizenship. Some of these young bright 

escapees explained their experiences living on the run in China. One intern, when asked how she 

had learned Chinese, clarified that prior to her escape to South Korea, she had grown up in 

secret, hidden behind closed doors in China. As she was undocumented and feared the Chinese 

government would arrest her and forcibly return her to North Korea, her Chinese protectors 

brought her books to help her learn and pass the time. 

China does not uphold its obligations under international law because it very rarely allows North 

Korean refugees access to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), instead only permitting the 

UNHCR an office in Beijing, far from the border. As evidenced by their forcible repatriation, 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1'1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
37


27811c-2.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

China denies many North Koreans the ability to apply for asylum or have safe passage to the 

Republic of Korea or other countries. China claims that North Koreans in need of protection are 

illegal economic migrants. But in reality they are victims fleeing persecution, who face a wellfounded fear of persecution if forcibly returned to North Korea. Time after time we hear trom 

North Korean retugees that when they were repatriated by China they faced imprisonment, 

torture, and various tonns of sexual violence. Especial! y if the interrogators suspect that the 

repatriated retugees came across South Korean nationals or Christian missionaries while in 

China, the punishment is sure to be harsh. Determined to escape the oppression and chronic 

human insecurity of North Korea, some attempt to escape again, even after detention and 

imprisonment. Some are successful and manage to tell the stories of their harrowing escape to 

the outside world. Through the voices of escapees who find their way to treedom in South Korea 

and other countries, we know that up to eighty percent of North Korean refugees in China are 

women. In the absence of any semblance of protection, they fall victim to human trat1ickers and 

other criminals. Many of those forced into sexual bondage under the guise of "marriage" with 

Chinese men in run-down rural areas are often abused by the would-be "spouse" and the entire 

family. Their children's human security is beyond precarious. China denies North Korean 

children the right to education, health and personal security as well as liberty when they are 

detained awaiting forcible repatriation. 

On the UN Commission of Inquiry 

Tn 2014, the United Nations Commission oflnquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COT) 

found that North Koreans forcibly repatriated by China systematically endure persecution, 

torture while heing imerrogated ahout their activities abroad, sexual violence, and imprisonmem 

in North Korea's inhuman detention system. Persons found to have contact with the Republic of 

Korea or Christian churches may be .forcibly disappeared imo po1ilica1 prison camps, imprisoned 

in .forced lahor camps. or summarily executed. 

The UN COl also found that North Koreans who try to flee their country and those in 

detention are among the primary targets of a systematic and widespread attack by North 

Korea, making them the most vulnerable and in need of protection. Not only are North 

Koreans targeted for escaping their totalitarian state, but then they are targeted by the Chinese 

government, and ultimately victimized again once repatriated to North Korea and imprisoned. Tt 

truly is a vicious cycle of political oppression and violence perpetrated against countless 

innocents. 

Despite the UN COT's findings and despite the fact that North Koreans are entitled to 

international protection as refugees fleeing persecution or refilgees sur place, "China pursues a 

rigorous policy of forcibly repatriating citizens of [North Korea] who cross the border illegally" 

with the view that these persons are "illegal economic migrants." 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1'1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
38


27811c-3.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

On human trafficking 

Up to 90 percent of North Korean women and girls in China fall prey to traffickers in China who 

sell them into sexual slavery, either in forced marriages or prostitution, to their shock and horror. 

Countless North Korean women are victimized in this manner because they are vulnerable as 

they try to escape the brutal conditions of their home country. In China, the women and girls are 

fodder for often-rural men looking for wives. They may have arrived in China with young 

children too, only to be cruelly separated by human traffickers. The cycle of violence and 

oppression once again continues as these women and girls are held against their will or are 

coerced into submission out of fear that the Chinese family will report them to authorities. 

Additionally, impregnated women and girls by Chinese men are further victimized when the 

Chinese government does not recognize the children they bear as legal residents otherwise 

entitled to basic rights to education and other public services. 

On prison camps 

A core HRNK objective is to completely, verifiably, and irreversibly dismantle North Korea's 

vast system of unlawful imprisonment, where up to 120,000 men, women, and children are 

detained under abysmal circumstances, forced to work and die in prison camps because of their 

perceived lack of loyalty to the Kim family. As such, HRNK is aware of six operational political 

prison camps and the existence of over twenty potential labor camps inside North Korea, 

recently documented in our October 2017 report The Parallel Gulag. 

Our 2015 report, The Hidden Gulag TV: Gender Repression and Prison 

Disappearances, documents the particular vulnerabilities of North Korean women jailed in a 

network of"political prison camps" (kH'an-1i-so) and "labor camps" (kyo-hwa-so). Increasingly, 

these facilities house women who have attempted to flee the country, and here, rates of mortality, 

malnutrition, forced labor, and exploitation are high. As our Co-Chair Emeritus Roberta Cohen, 

a distinguished human rights and displaced persons expert noted, "Women in particular are 

fleeing North Korea in ever greater numbers. When they are apprehended, they are subjected to 

deliberate starvation, persecution, and punishment. Their situation cries out for international 

attention." 

In this report, we also found evidence that an additional section of Camp 12 at Jongo-ri, North 

Hamgyong Province, was built to imprison the influx of women arrested and forcibly repatriated 

by China. Our interviews with former prisoners at this camp indicate that upwards of one 

thousand women are enslaved here. Eighty percent, eight hundred of them, are forcibly 

repatriated refugees. According to our witnesses, former Camp 12 prisoners themselves, so many 

women prisoners were brought to the camp that a new building annex was constructed to house 

them. We were able to confirm the presence of the new construction through satellite imagery 

acquisition and analysis. 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1·1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
39


27811c-4.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

On China's non-compliance with international conventions 

China received a warning by the UN COl in 2014 that its policy of forcibly repatriating North 

Korean refugees could potentially amount to aiding and abetting North Korean perpetrators of 

crimes against humanity. The UN COl urged China to caution relevant officials that conduct 

could amount to the aiding and abetting of crimes agoinst humanity where repatriations and 

information exchanges are specifically directed toward or have the purpose offacilitating the 

commission of crimes against humanity in North Korea. 

North Koreans fleeing political persecution-based on North Korea's discriminatory social class 

system known as songbun-are refugees as defined in the Refugee Convention. North Koreans 

with a well-founded fear of persecution upon their forcible return to North Korea by China are 

reji.~gees sur place and must be given protection under China's international obligations, 

including the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating 

to the Status of Refugees. 

China's forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees violates its obligation to uphold the 

principle of nm1-rejimlemenl under the Refugee Convention. Furthermore, China violates article 

3 of the Torture Convention, which states, "No State Party shall expel, return ('refouler') or 

extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he 

would be in danger of being subjected to torture." 

On US and global efforts to protect refugees and surge information 

Notwithstanding high-level advocacy, China has forcibly repatriated tens of thousands of North 

Koreans. However, over 30,000 North Korean refugees now reside in over 20 nations, with the 

vast majority of them, 31,000 currently living in the Republic of Korea. While the United States 

Refugee Admissions Program remains the largest in the world, fewer than 220 refugees from 

North Korea have resettled since the enactment of the North Korea Human Rights Act of2004. 

As part of efforts to provide information on North Korea's human rights abuses, HRNK wrote 

and published a series ofWikipedia contributions on human rights in North Korea, including in 

Chinese. Since China is perhaps the only country in the world with substantial leverage on the 

Kim regime, accounting for over 80% of North Korea's foreign trade, the awareness and support 

of the Chinese people is now more imperative than ever, although the degree to which the public 

can actually influence foreign policy in China is highly debatable, to say the least. The 

Wikipedia pages created by HRNK are available in f'ngli~h. !(ors;an, and 

On United States policy 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1'1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
40


27811c-5.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

Painfully aware of ongoing concerns and echoing HRNK's previous recommendations submitted 

together with then HRNK Board co-chair Roberta Cohen before a March 5, 2012 hearing of the 

Congressional-Executive Commission of China, I respectfully recommend the following: 

First, the United States should urge China to immediately halt its forcible repatriation of North 

Korean refugees, and thus fulfill its obligations pursuant to the 1951 United Nations Convention 

relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, the 

Torture Convention, and the 1995 Agreement on the Upgrading of the lJNHCRMission in the 

People's Republic of China. 

Second. the United States should call upon China to allow the UNHCR unimpeded access to 

North Koreans inside China to determine whether they are refugees and whether they require 

assistance. 

Third, China should be called upon to adopt legislation incorporating its obligations under the 

Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture, and other international human rights 

agreements and to bring its existing laws into line with internationally agreed upon principles. It 

should be expected to declare and uphold a moratorium on deportations of North Koreans until 

its laws and practices are brought into line with international standards. 

}(mrlh, China should be urged to recognize the legal status of North Korean women who marry 

or have children with Chinese citizens, and ensure that all such children are granted resident 

status and access to education and other public services in accordance with both Chinese law and 

international standards. 

Fifth, in the absence of a Chinese response, the issue should be brought before international 

refugee and human rights fora. UNHCR's Executive Committee as well as the UN Human 

Rights Council and General Assembly of the United Nations should all be expected to call on 

China by name to carry out its obligations under refugee and human rights law and enact 

legislation to codify these obligations so that North Koreans will not be forcibly repatriated while 

facing a credible fear of persecution. 

Sixth, the United States should promote a multilateral approach to the problem of North Koreans 

leaving their country. Their exodus affects more than China. This critical issue concerns our 

South Korean allies most notably, as South Korea already houses 31,000 North Korean escapees, 

and its Constitution offers citizenship to North Koreans. Together with UNHCR, a multilateral 

approach should be designed that finds solutions for North Koreans based on principles of nonrejoulement and human tights and humanitarian protection. Building on the precedent of other 

refugee populations, international burden sharing should be developed to protect North Koreans 

seeking to escape the tyranny of the Kim regime. 

Seventh, following the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of2017, 

which mandates the position of the Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights, the US 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1·1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
41


27811c-6.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

Congress urge the prompt appointment of a qualified candidate. I share in the belief that the large 

number of special envoys in the State Department should be greatly reduced. I strongly believe, 

however, that this particular issue merits the full-time, high profile focus across various agencies 

that the Special Envoy has so effectively brought, and would continue to bring. 

£ighth. that additional funds be appropriated for clandestine infonnation t1ow into North Korea, 

for non-governmental organizations working to improve human rights in North Korea, and for 

the resettlement of North Korean refugees in the United States. 

The most critical challenge our country faces today is the nuclear and ballistic missile threat 

posed by the regime of Kim Jong-un. Grateful for the Subcommittee's unabated determination to 

protect North Korean refugees in China, 1 respectfully urge you to continue to consider the vital 

importance offormulating and adopting a robust human rights policy, including a North Korean 

refugee protection policy, that can be integrated into US security policy toward both China and 

North Korea's Kim regime. 

HRNK Resources 

Four HRNK publications address the precarious plight of North Koreans in China and the cruel 

and inhuman practice of forcibly sending them back to one of the world's most oppressive 

regimes. 

• The first, The North Korean Refilgee Crisis: Human Rights and Intemationa1 

Re.sponse (2006), edited by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, establishes that most if 

not all North Koreans in China merit a prima facie claim to refugee or refugee sur 

p1ace status. This report is available at 

https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/The _North _Korean_ Refugee_ Crisis. pdf 

The second, Lives fur Sale: Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to 

China (2010), calls upon China to set up a screening process with the UN High 

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to determine the status of North Koreans and 

ensure they are not forcibly returned. This report is available at 

https:/ /www.hrnk.org/upl oads/pdfs/Lives _for_ Sale. pdf 

• The third, Hidden Gulag Second F:dition by David Hawk (2012), presents the harrowing 

testimony of scores of North Koreans severely punished after being returned to North 

Korea. This report is available at 

https:/ /www.hrnk.org/upl oads/pdfs/HRNK _ HiddenGulag2 _Web_ 5-18. pdf 

• The fourth, Gender Repression and Hidden Gu1ag IV: Gender Repression and Prisoner 

Disappearances by David Hawk (20 15) finds that North Korean women, desperate to 

ensure their families' survival after catastrophic famine in the 1990s-are excessively 

victimized and detention facilities for women have notably expanded. This report, as well 

as satellite imagery that verifies the additional structure, are available here: 

https:/ /www. hrnk.org/upl oads/pdfs/Hawk_ Hidden Gulag4 _FINAL. pdf and 

https:l/www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/ ASA _ HRNK _ Camp12 _ 201608 _vi 0 _ LR.pdf 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1·1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
42


27811c-7.eps

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

1001 C01meetieul Avenue, NW ·Suite 435 • Washiuglon, DC 20036 · (202) 499-7973 · www.hrnkorg 

In October 2017, HRNK published The Parallel Gulag: North Korea's "An:ieon-bu" Prisons by 

David Hawk with Amanda Mortwedt Oh. The Honorable Michael Kirby, former Chair of the UN 

COl, states that Parallel Gulag "updates the record contained in the COl report" and "shows that 

North Korea's system of political oppression remains in place as an atlfont to the conscience of 

humanity .. , The report is available at 

https://www.hmk.orgluploads/pdfs/Hawk _ The_Parallel_ Gulag_ Web.pdf with picture files 

available at https:/ /www.flickr.com/photos/1592283 85@N04/sets/7215 766187673 73 98/. 

Prior Congressional testimony to the CECC on North Korean refugees by Roberta Cohen and 

Greg Scarlatoiu is available at https//www.hmk.orglevents/congressional-hearingsview. php?id=7 and https/ /www.hrnk.org/events/congressional-hearings-vi ew. php?id= 1. 

Thank you for your kind consideration. 

Greg Scarlatoiu 

Executive Director 

Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 

K.Llnna Lantos S1\ell Co-Ch.nr 

lohn l)espre~ Co-l'iw-Chair 

Hckn-Loutsc Hunter, Secretary 

h:eYm :'vfcCann. TrerrsunT 

BoardofDirectors 

RoherLL Cohen, Co-ehwr !Cmenlu.s 

Andrew \Jabro~ en-Chau· F:medf!JS 

1\lc>rlonAbram''l\llL 

laomeC'ohen 

LJsaColacurcJo 

AbrahamCo,---.per 

Da1·1JK1m 

\VIIlst,)nl ,>rd 

Greg Scarlatom, Execut11'e D1rector 
43

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your leadership and for 

that very detailed set of recommendations. 

Ms. Scholte. 

STATEMENT OF MS. SUZANNE SCHOLTE, PRESIDENT, DEFENSE FORUM FOUNDATION, CHAIRWOMAN, NORTH KOREA 

FREEDOM COALITION 

Ms. SCHOLTE. First of all, I know I am going to embarrass you 

when I say this but I can’t help it, Congressman Smith. [Laughter.] 

The last time we were together there were 18 North Korean defectors in your office, and I have to tell you when we walked out 

of there, those defectors said, ‘‘That is the greatest man we’ve ever 

met,’’ because you were so great to them and you have been focussing on this issue for decades. 

And so I thank you so much for your leadership on this, for your 

bringing this hearing together today and I just wanted to say what 

a great, awesome person you’ve been. 

I am also really happy to be here with Bob King, whose door was 

always open, who was always ready to help us when found out 

about a refugee that was in danger, always willing to speak out 

in—from small towns to college campuses and really raise the 

North Korean human rights profiles—issues as the special envoy 

for President Obama. 

And also for my colleague, Greg—one of the things on my top 10 

list of good things I’ve done in my life was insisting that he become 

the executive director of HRNK. So I am really glad to be with 

these gentleman. 

So I have a very extended written testimony I’ve already submitted so I am going to be really brief and try to stay within the 

five—I think I got this down to 5 minutes 8 seconds. 

So anyway, I want to make three main points. One, the situation 

facing North Korean refugees in China is worse than ever. Xi 

Jinping has brought us to a crisis stage because of his support for 

the regime. 

Today we are relying on China to help us make sanctions effective to rein in Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions. But if China continues to forcefully repatriate men, women, and children back to 

North Korea to face certain torture, certain imprisonment, and, in 

some cases, execution, what does that tell us about Xi Jinping’s 

sincerity? 

The international community must insist that China and its 

cruel, inhumane, and illegal repatriation policy—China’s policy as 

been—as been pointed out is a death sentence for North Koreans 

and as Ambassador King pointed out, 80 percent—and talked about 

the defectors poisoning themselves—we know 80 percent of North 

Korean defectors carry poison to kill themselves and we saw that 

dramatically happen this summer when the Korean Workers Party 

member, his wife, and three children committed suicide when the 

Chinese, on orders by Beijing, ordered them back to North Korea 

after they begged to be allowed to go to South Korea. 

The Chinese Government continues to not only forcefully repatriate refugees but refuses to allow the UNHCR any access, but 

also gives free rein to North Korean agents to hunt down the refugees and those that try to help them. 

44

We have seen the murder of Chinese citizens. We have seen the 

abduction of South Koreans. And what do they have in common? 

They have been involved in the North Korean refugee movement. 

So that’s the point that we’ve reached right now with China. 

China has only two choices. It can continue to support the Kim dictatorship and this will ensure an escalating nuclear arms race in 

Asia, which could have horrific and devastating consequences, especially for the people of Korea. 

Or the other choice, which is for China to work with South Korea 

and the international community for peaceful unification under 

South Korea’s democratic policies. 

And I just want to give one example. The gentleman mentioned 

THAAD. I think both of you mentioned the THAAD. 

Why did South Korea need THAAD? The only reason why South 

Korea needed THAAD was because of Kim Jong-un’s nuclear 

threats, and this is an illustration of why China needs to decide 

whether it’s going to continue to support this regime or work with 

South Korea and bring about the end of the Kim regime. 

Second point—this is very critical, too—we need to recognize 

what the people of North Korea have done internally and externally to change their circumstances and support the work of the defector-led organizations. 

They are our greatest allies for peaceful regime change. We all 

see the pictures of the goose-stepping soldiers and the fawning men 

and women in front of the Kim statues and we think it’s a hopeless 

situation. 

But in this great darkness of North Korea, I see the light of the 

North Korean people because those are the people I have been 

working with for over 20 years. 

The reality is—we must think of this—the reality is that the people of North Korea have accomplished amazing things. It’s the people externally who educated us, first of all, about the human rights 

tragedy—the crimes against humanity, the Kim dictatorships. But 

it’s the people internally who are also educating themselves about 

the outside world. 

It’s the women of North Korea who internally created the market 

system and the ones externally who are involved the most in the 

rescue movement. 

I know a North Korean woman who has rescued 7,000 North Koreans. I call her the Harriet Tubman of North Korea. 

North Korean defectors like Park Sang-hak of Fighters for Free 

North Korea regularly sends in information through balloon watches and he says, ‘‘All I am doing is sending letters home about the 

truth.’’

The North Korean People’s Liberation Front, men and women 

who served in the North Korean military, are sending in information and reaching out to the military in North Korea, citing the examples of what happened in Romania when the military sided with 

the people against the dictator. 

Every North Korea Freedom Week we have a very emotional 

ceremony with the North Korean People’s Liberation Front members, men and women who served in the military, raised to hate 

Americans, think we caused the war. 

45

They go to the Korean War Memorial to lay a wreath and they 

pledge to honor the sacrifice that the Americans made for South 

Korea’s freedom by dedicating their own lives to North Korea’s 

freedom. 

As you heard from Ms. Han from Free North Korea Radio, a 

radio station founded by North Korean defector Kim Sung-min and 

staffed by defectors, it is broadcasting every day. It is the most 

popular single program broadcasting into North Korea. 

And one of the exciting things we do for Free North Korea Radio 

is create programs for them to communicate to the people of North 

Korea that we are not their enemy. 

One program includes messages from Members of Congress in 

which we simply asked members to send their hopes and dreams 

to the people of North Korea. 

The response from North Koreans to this program was absolutely 

amazing. During this year’s North Korea Freedom Week, defectors 

brought portraits made of Members of Congress, including our distinguished chairman here today—Congressman Smith, and Congressman Royce, the chairman of the full committee. 

These portraits were smuggled out. They were made in 

Pyongyang by two brothers. It took them 3 months, and the portraits came out with the message, ‘‘Tell the American politicians 

who deliver the messages my brother and I spent 3 months making 

them late into the night. Please tell them there are some people 

in a dark place who still have hope.’’ And you know how beautiful—they were the most beautiful artwork I’ve ever seen. They 

shimmered. 

The defectors tell us that if they had the resources to carry out 

their work of getting information in and out of North Korea, the 

regime could end in 3 years or less. 

Otherwise, it could survive for another 5 to 10 years. 

My third and final point, we must keep the human rights issues 

at the forefront, and Greg mentioned the importance of the human 

rights up front approach. We have to keep our concerns for the people of North Korea at the forefront, especially now—especially now 

with the escalating threats of Kim Jong-un. 

Otherwise, we play directly into Kim’s propaganda that justifies 

his nuclear ambitions—that we are their enemy and the enemy of 

the people of North Korea. 

We must communicate to the people of North Korea that what 

the United States wants for them is to enjoy the same freedoms 

that South Korea Americans enjoy. 

The defectors keep repeating—repeating this to us. The truth 

will set them free. Support the work of the defectors. Help them 

get the information to North Korea. 

And I am presenting to you this book today called, ‘‘The Accusation.’’ This is the only dissident book from North Korea. It was 

smuggled out at great risk to those involved. It was smuggled out. 

It was published in English earlier this year. The author is still 

living in North Korea and he chose to use the pseudonym Bandi—

B-A-N-D-I, Bandi—because Bandi is the Korean word for firefly. 

And he says he is the firefly shining a light out of the darkness 

of North Korea. 

46

He’s just another example of the people of North Korea who are 

another light shining out of this darkness. He’s just another example of another North Korean risking his life just to get this message from his homeland to you. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Scholte follows:]

47


27811e-1.eps

Suzanne Scholte, Seoul Peace Prize Laureate 

President, Defense Forum Foundation; Chair, North Korea Freedom Coalition 

House Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations 

'"Protecting North Korean Refugees" Tuesday, December 12,2017 

Thank you to Congressman Chris Smith and Congresswoman Karen Bass for your leadership on this 

subcommittee and bringing attention to the crisis facing North Korea refugees in China. 1 also want to 

acknowledge Congressmen Ed Royce and Eliot Engel for their leadership on the North Korea human rights 

issues in the Congress and the ways they have worked together in strong bi-partisan partnership to advance 

human rights globally. 

I wish to make three main points· 

--The situation facing North Korean refugees in China is worse than ever because of Xi Jinping's illegal and 

inhuman repatriation policy. Xi has brought us to a crisis stage with just two options for China 

--We need to recognize what the people of North Korea have done internally and externally to change their 

circumstances and support the work of the defector led organizations. These defector led NGOs are our greatest 

weapon for peaceful regime change and the avoidance of conflict. 

--We must keep the human rights issues- our concerns for the people of North Korea-- at the forefront of our 

policies especially now with the escalating threats by Kim Jong Un. Otherwise, we play directly into Kim's 

propaganda that justifies his nuclear ambitions: that we are the enemy of the people of North Korea. 

Despite the fact that the world has finally come to recognize what defectors have been telling us for decades 

that the Kim Jong Un regime is committing crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights, there 

has not been any improvement in the lives of the people of North Korea and the situation facing the refugees 

today is worse than ever before. There is nothing that Kim Jong Un fears more than his own people for they are 

the ones who have educated us about the reality of their suffering. They are the also the ones leading the efforts 

to change the hearts and minds of the people of North Korea. 

Today, we are relying on China to help us make sanctions effective to try to reign in Kim Jong-un' s nuclear 

ambitions, but if China continues to forcefully repatriate men, women, and children back to North Korea to face 

certain torture, certain imprisonment and in some cases execution, what does that tell us about Xi Jinping's 

sincerity? 

The international community must insist that China end its cruel, inhumane, and illegal repatriation policy 

North Korean defectors describe China's policy as a ''death sentence for North Koreans. " I have pointed out in 

previous testimony before this Committee this important fact: unlike any refugees in the world, North Korean 

refugees have a place to go for immediate resettlement as they are citizens of South Korea under the South 

Korean constitution. There is absolutely no reason for China to continue this policy. 

North Korean defectors testified during this April's North Korea Freedom Week that 80% of North Korean 

defectors carry poison to kill themselves if they are caught by the Chinese authorities. This summer a family of 

five North Koreans including a senior member ofthe North Korea's Worker's Party, his wife, son and two 

daughters, were arrested by Chinese security forces. They begged them not to force them back to North Korea, 

but following orders from Beijing the Chinese police escorted them to the North Korean border. Fearing certain 

torture, imprisonment and possible execution, the family of five all committed suicide by taking poison. North 

Korean defectors would rather die than be repatriated to North Korea 
48


27811e-2.eps

We saw earlier this month the desperate escape of a North Korean soldier who was shot multiple times as he 

tled across the DMZ to South Korea. 

The Chinese government continues to refuse to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees any access to 

these refugees but gives tree reign to the agents of the DPRK's Ministry of State Security to hunt down refugees 

and to murder those who try to help them. Even Chinese citizens have been jailed and murdered for helping 

North Korean refugees. Most recently we have seen the suspected abduction of a South Korean deacon Kim 

Won Ho in March 2016 and the murder of Chinese Pastor Han Choong-ryeol in April2016. Both were 

involved in assisting North Korea refugees. These are just two examples of many cases of disappearances and 

suspicious deaths of those who try to assist North Korean refugees, but there are also numerous examples of 

Americans, South Koreans and Japanese getting arrested and imprisoned for doing something that in most 

countries of the world would earn acclaim: helping homeless refugees. For example, American citizens Steve 

Kim of New York and John Yoon of Washington served time in prison in China for helping refugees. 

So, China not only forcibly repatriates North Korean refugees back to North Korean, it criminalizes those who 

try to assist them, and works closely with the DPRK to make the border region of China and North Korea one of 

the most dangerous borders in the world 

Contributing to the North Korean refugee crisis has been China's one child policy There is a shortage of 

women in China. So, you have a country with a shortage of women, China, and a neighboring country, North 

Korea, where the women are struggling to feed their starving families, which created a honitic situation when 

famine struck North Korea the trafficking of North Korean. Most North Korean females who cross that border 

get trafficked sold as wives to Chinese men, sold into forced prostitution or internet pornography 

And when these women are forced back to North Korea and discovered to be pregnant, the DPRK regime's 

policy is to force these North Korean women to undergo abortions because the babies are "half Chinese." 

These decades of abuse of North Korean women in China has led to another crisis: stateless children in China, 

whose mothers are North Korean, and many cases of North Korean mothers being separated from their Chinese 

born children when they eventually are able to escape to South Korea 

We have now reached a crisis point because of Xi Jinping's support for the Kim dictatorship and there are only 

two choices left for China: 

Continue to support the Kim dictatorship and ensure an escalating nuclear arms race in Asia which could have 

horrific and devastating consequences for Korea especially OR work with South Korea and the international 

community for peaceful unification under South Korea's leadership 

The people of China know the future is with South Korea, NOT North Korea. Even Chinese leaders and writers 

have expressed this view. Chinese General Wang wrote in the Global limes in December 2014 that China 

''had cleaned up the JJPRK mess too many times" and that ''collcqJse is just a matter of time." While he was 

editor of the Study limes, the journal for the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China, Deng 

Yuwen, wrote that China should "give up on Pyongyang and press fOr the reunification of the Korean 

peninsula." He lost his editorship but his words resonated. More recently he wrote: "North Korea will 

ultimale/yfail no mafler how much you throw money a/ if, and il is in the process l?{ collapse. '' 
49


27811e-3.eps

These Chinese leaders realize the future is with South Korea and it is time for China to stop being complicit in 

North Korea's crimes against humanity and end support of the Kim regime. 

Just one recent example to illustrate this point: China was very much opposed to South Korea's deployment of 

the missile defense system, THAAD, but South Korea only felt THAAD was necessary because of Kim Jong 

Un's threats. 

Second point, we are failing to recognize and appreciate what the people of North Korea have done through 

their own self determination. We need to recognize what the people of North Korea have done internally and 

externally to change their circumstances and support the work of the defector led organizations These defector 

led NGOs are our greatest weapon for peaceful regime change and the avoidance of conflict. 

We all see the pictures of the goose stepping soldiers and the fawning men and women before the Kim statues 

and think it is a hopeless situation. But in this great darkness of North Korea, I see the light of the people of 

North Korea. The reality is that the people of North Korea have accomplished amazing things making the North 

Korea of Kim Jong Un dramatically different than the North Korea of Kim Jong 11 or Kim II Song. 

First of all, it is the people of North Korea who have educated us so that no longer can we deny that the triple 

Kim dictatorships have committed and are committing crimes against humanity. Over 30,000 have escaped to 

bear witness. 

Second, it is the women of North Korea, through their own self determination, who created the market system, 

so that capitalism is thriving in North Korea and is why people are surviving today. Attempt after attempt by 

the regime to control these markets failed and the last attempt in 2009 to reassert control over the economy with 

a currency devaluation caused such a backlash from the people of North Korea, the regime stepped back and 

now allows these markets to function 

It is the people of North Korea, hungry for information and fascinated by South Korean soap operas and 

Western movies, that have educated themselves, so that they are far more knowledgeable about the outside 

world 

It is the people of North Korea who escaped who have taken up the work of saving their people and getting 

information into North Korea. The defectors are the ones who have been most successful in rescuing North 

Koreans. 1 know one woman, the Harriet Tubman of the North Korean underground railroad, who has rescued 

7000 people from her homeland 

Defectors have also taken up the work that we use to do of getting information into North Korea. For example, 

Park Sang Hak of Fighters for Free North Korea regularly sends in leaflets of information, shortwave radios, 

usbs, and money for the markets via balloon launches. Park's messages include true information about South 

Korea, true history, and important news. He states: "Alll am doing is sending letters home about the truth." 

His most recent balloon launches informed the people ofNorth Korea that Kim Jong Un murdered his own half 

brother and also told them about the murder of Otto Warmbier, so that North Koreans would know about these 

horrible crimes. 

It is defectors like Choi Jeong Un, Choi Joo Hwal, and Cha Ri-hyuk of the North Korea People's Liberation 

Front who have sent in 12,000 notels, 400 shortwave radios and 50,000 USBs with information, and batteries. 

Because the electricity situation is dire, they are also smuggling in batteries for the notels and the radios. 
50


27811e-4.eps

They are especially reaching out to the military in North Korea. They are sharing with them the history of what 

happened in Rumania when the military sided with the people against the dictator and ended the dictatorship 

there and calling for them to do that for North Koreans 

Every North Korea Freedom Week begins with a very emotional ceremony led by the North Korea People's 

Liberation Front, men and women who served in the North Korea military. Having been raised to hate 

Americans and believe that we caused the Korean War, these former North Korean soldiers go to the Korean 

War Memorial and lay a wreath and pledge to honor the sacrifice Americans made for South Korea's freedom 

by dedicating themselves to North Korea's freedom. 

Another defector organization is Free North Korea Radio, which is broadcasting every day into North Korea 

and can be heard throughout North Korea and the border region in China. It is staffed by North Korean 

defectors and was founded by Kim Seong Min, a fanner DPRK Anny captain 

The greatest weapon we have in dealing with North Korea is the truth and the best tellers of the truth are the 

defectors who have escaped. I will give you several clear examples that prove this point 

During North Korea Freedom Week 2015 defectors wrote a declaration stating: "We are North Korean 

defectors who left parents, siblings, and other family hehind in North Korea. J'hose H'e love are still in North 

Korea, and because 1ve know better than anyone haw they are livh1gwe are working for the rights of the North 

Korean people ... Our J<Oa!s are to make North Korean sociely a democracy and a reun~fied Korea a country 

that can play a role in .~preading peace throughout the world, starting in East Asia.·· 

In August 2015 when two South Korean soldiers were maimed by land mines planted by the North Korean 

military, South Korea decided to tum the loud speakers back on at the DMZ that had been silenced since the 

Sunshine Policy. For three days, they played K-Pop music, and regular South Korean news programming. But 

on the fourth day the South Korean government-- on those loud speakers- started broadcasting the programs of 

Free North Korea Radio. What happened next North Korea immediately demanded to go back to the 

negotiating table. During the September 2015 negotiations, North Korea did not ask for a peace treaty, which 

they always are asking for; North Korea did not ask for the end of ROK-US military exercises, which they are 

always asking for. North Korea only asked for one thing during the September 2015 negotiation and that was: 11Turn off the loud speakers. 11 The North Korea regime could not have their soldiers and citizens hear the voices 

of their brothers and sisters living in freedom in South Korea. 

One of the exciting things we do is provide special programs for Free North Korea Radio to help them 

communicate to the people of North Korea that we are not their enemy, and we certainly do not '·occupy South 

Korea" as they are brainwashed to believe. In fact, the friendship between America and South Korea is what 

helped propel South Korea into the 111

h largest economy in the world. 

One of the programs we started a few years ago is to send messages to North Korea from American leaders 

during Seollal (Korean New Year) and on August 15'" (Korean Liberation Day). We asked Members of the 

US Congress to send us messages of what they would like to say to the PEOPLE of North Korea, to share their 

hopes and dreams. Our hope was to show through your words how much the American people care about the 

people of North Korea. These messages were powerful, and the response from North Korea was amazing from 

the radio station's informants. 

One man in North Korea reported ''The [North Korean! government allrays mentions that America is our toted 

enemy hut a lot qfpeople already know that America is the most developed and democratic counuy ... l nn'er 
51


27811e-5.eps

hnaghzed that politidansjhm1 the U.c)'. would have partidpated in the radio shmv, 1vMch is run by North 

Korean defector.'!, and .•1end messages lo North Korean.'!.'' 

Another citizen said "We ne\'er dare to say Kim Jung f.'un 's government should he collapsed, so that people can 

hve peacejit!ly. Huwever, I am extremely happy that someone else could say thisjbr us." 

During this past April's North Korea Freedom Week the defectors brought with them something truly amazing 

Hand woven silk portraits made of three Members of Congress by two brothers living in Pyongyang who listen 

to Free North Korea Radio. If they had been caught doing this, they would have been executed. The portraits 

were smuggled out with this message: "Tell the American politicians who delivered the messages. My brother 

and l :~peru three monlhs making them late inlo the night. Please !ell them there are some people in a dark place 

who 'till hare hope because ofSoulh Korea and the US." 

One other indicator of the importance of this work is see who is on Kim Jong Un's assassination list: this list 

tells you who he fears most Number one on the list is Kim Seong Min, the founder and director of Free North 

Korea Radio, and number two is Park Sang Hak, the founder and director of Fighters for Free North Korea. 

The defectors tell u.fl that ~{they had the resources to carry out their programs getting information in and out 

o,{North Korea the regime could end in three years or les.s; othenvi.-,·e it could ,-,·urvivefor another five to ten 

years. Balloon launches, radio broadcasting, smuggling in USBs, Notels, utilizing drones, which is the newest 

method being utilized, are ALL critical because of the different ways to reach people in the different regions of 

North Korea. 

Finally third and last point, we must keep the human rights issues- our concerns for the people of North Korea 

--at the forefront of our policies especially now with the escalating threats by Kim Jong Un. Otherwise, we 

play directly into Kim's propaganda that justifies his nuclear ambitions: that we are the enemy of the people of 

North Korea. We must communicate to the people of North Korea that what the United States wants for them is 

to enjoy the same freedoms that South Koreans and Americans enjoy. 

We need to emphasize that the friendship with the United States and the freedoms in South Korea are what led 

South Korea, out of the ashes and devastation of the Korean War, to become in a relatively short period the ll 1

h 

largest economy in the world. When we fail to put human rights at the forefront and focus exclusively on the 

nuclear issue we feed into the lie that Kim Jong Un tells the people of North Korea: we are their enemy and 

want to destroy them and therefore North Korea must have nuclear weapons. 

For example, the speech that President Donald Trump gave in Seoul was exactly the right message. I have 

worked on North Korea human rights issues for over 20 years and that was the best speech any American-- or 

South Korean-- President has ever given about what our brothers and sisters in North Korea have suffered 

under the triple Kim dictatorships. 

During North Korea Freedom Week, the defectors kept repeating !he trulh willsetthemfree. the truth <vill set 

them fl-ee. Help us gel/he truth to North Korea. To underscore these points, I have brought with me further 

proof about the importance of the people of North Korea. I am presenting to you this book The Accusationthe only dissident book from North Korea. It was smuggled out of North Korea and published in English earlier 

this year. The author is still living in North Korea and he chose to use the pseudonym, Bandi. Bandi is Korean 

for Firefly as he is the Firefly shining a light out ofthe darkness of North Korea 

He is just another example of the amazing spirit of the people of North Korea, the light shining out of the 

darkness, another North Korean risking his life just to get you his message from his homeland to you Thank 

you. ### 
52

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scholte, thank you very much for your extraordinary leadership over the course of over two decades. It really has 

made a difference. 

I do have a number of questions but I’ll try to keep them a little 

bit brief. If any of you would like to speak to the issue of the cult 

of personality, which I think is grossly underappreciated by the 

Pentagon and by many of the people within our own military. 

We know that when people believe that they are serving a god—

in this case, a demigod, someone who is actually doing horrific 

things but claiming to be God—certainly, his grandfather did—that 

the sense of extremism and obsession almost knows no bounds. 

I know a lot of Americans, when they see documentary footage 

of people crying so profusely they think it’s orchestrated, people tell 

me, including experts like yourselves, it’s not. 

They really do—okay, they can gin some of that up but so much 

of it is from the earliest years inculcated into the minds and 

hearts. 

And I did ask our two previous witnesses, how do they break free 

of that, and the truth does set you free but it has to be applied over 

time which is why broadcasting and other means of communication 

are so important. 

But if you could speak to that whole issue of Juche. I’ve read one 

book about it by a Christian who said you’ve got to understand why 

they are so fanatical and why they will die in large numbers for 

Kim, whoever the Kim might be at that time, which we, again, 

under appreciate. The sense being able to reason effectively goes 

out the window. 

So I just ask you if you could speak to that first and then I’ll get 

to some other questions. 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Indoctrination begins at a very early age in North Korea. It begins at the precognizant age. Babies in the cradle are taught to 

point fingers to the pictures of Kim Il-song and Kim Jong-il on the 

wall. 

Laws are on paper. North Korea has a constitution that even 

provides for freedom of religion and freedom of expression, labor 

legislation, a criminal code. 

But in practice, none of these laws are applied. North Koreans 

do not know the international obligations that North Korea has assumed by ratifying, for example, the International Covenant on 

Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, 

Social, and Cultural Rights or their own legislation. 

The only principles that govern each and every aspect of life in 

North Korea are the Ten Principles of Monolithic Ideology as evidenced in our recent research and publications by Robert Collins. 

Each and every North Korean has to participate in weekly ideological training sessions, self-criticism sessions. 

This is very much part of life. During those long years that all 

men and many women spend in the military, indoctrination is 

taken to the next stage. One has, of course, to remember that the 

age of revolution in Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, or Bucharest 

1989 was late teens, early 20s, mid-20s. 

53

That’s the age when each and every North Korean man is in a 

military uniform. By the time they are done the age of revolution 

has passed. 

Juche—of course, this is North Korea’s self-reliance ideology. On 

the surface, it sounds very different from Marxism. Marxism basically preaches that ownership of the means of production is the 

main driver of history. Juche claims that the individual is the main 

driver of history. 

We had a senior fellow—resident senior fellow, very nice lady, 

born and raised in North Korea. She used to be a professor of 

Juche thought in North Korea. Now she’s a university professor in 

South Korea. 

She would tell us every time we asked her about Juche, don’t 

worry about Juche. The only—the sole purpose of Juche is to worship the leader, to solidify the leader’s personality cult. 

Basically, the individual makes sense, individual life only makes 

sense for as long as it’s lived as part of the commonwealth. Life 

makes sense only if it’s lived for the sake of the Supreme Leader. 

As to information campaigns, the critical information campaigns 

that we launched into North Korea must surely be cognizant and 

fully knowledgeable of the different cognitive processes in North 

Korea. 

We must be fully cognizant that education is very different. 

World views are very different. The way North Koreans approach 

ideas is very different. So we are much better off if we have former 

North Koreans in charge of working on content and delivering this 

content perhaps in collaboration with other organizations. But they 

must definitely be involved in this process. 

Mr. KING. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I think we need 

to be careful about is that I am not sure the North Koreans are 

as indoctrinated as we would sometimes think. 

Barbara Demick, in her book, ‘‘Nothing to Envy,’’ talks about 

what life was like in North Korea. One of the very telling incidents 

she cites is about a particular family and how they dealt with the 

death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. 

The mother told the daughter, ‘‘At school today you’re going to 

have a memorial service for Kim Il-sung. You have to cry. You 

must have real tears. If you can’t cry, spit in your hand and wipe 

it on your eyes so that everyone will know that you’re crying.’’

They understand and they can see that. It’s a society where to 

deviate becomes so difficult that people who may have different 

views or see things differently don’t talk about it because of the nature of the society. 

I think this is not a place where you’ve got to convince people 

that other things are true. This is a place where people need to 

have an opportunity to do that. 

The key thing is making sure that we get information into North 

Korea that provides an alternative explanation of what’s going on 

in the world and that, again, is the importance of news broadcasting and information dissemination. 

That is where we need to make sure that there is funding for 

Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and for the programs that are 

being developed to do that. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scholte. 

54

Ms. SCHOLTE. Well, first of all, I just want to tell you, I totally 

agree with you that this—the understanding of the Juche ideology 

is something that is completely under appreciated. 

The—one of the witnesses we had during North Korea Freedom 

Week this last year was from Pyongyang. She was part of the 

elites. She and her mom ran a restaurant, had the good life. 

She was—she said that when Kim Jong-il died, they thought 

they were all going to die, and I think maybe the Juche police system is probably more powerful in Pyongyang because it’s the elites 

that are there and they are not—and they are more—actually more 

isolated than people, like, for example, in the border regions. 

But I think it’s a very important controlling system in the brain, 

with the brainwashing from the start. But it’s really focused on the 

fact that the Kim family are God and Juche has really become the 

worship. 

Not the self-reliance that Hwang Jang-yop, who’s the author of 

Juche, established but the worship of the Kim dictatorship. 

And Hwang Jang-yop interestingly pointed out when he defected, 

he said the way to break the Juche ideology is with the Holy Spirit. 

He actually became a Christian before he died, and he was really 

involved with Free North Korea Radio and Ms. Han cited the programs where they—these are programs that are—that are done to 

worship the regime, the songs—I am sorry, the songs that are 

meant. 

They changed the wordings of the songs. And Greg mentioned 

the importance of the messaging. That’s exactly the kind of thing 

to change to address that belief system directly with truthful information, and this is one of the clever ways that the North Koreans 

are being able to do it. 

But I do think it’s very important that we realize the cult of personality that’s part of this Juche and the brainwashing that starts 

from the very moment they are children when they—even math 

problems—‘‘how many American GIs did you kill when you threw 

a grenade.’’

I mean, this starts at the very beginning. We need to be aware 

of that. 

And I’ll finally say that the first defectors we brought over, one 

was an army captain. It was back in 1997, an army captain and 

a colonel, and they got up in front of the audience and said, ‘‘None 

of you guys look like wolves and your noses are a lot smaller than 

I thought they were going to be’’ because all Americans are supposed to have these long crooked noses. But it’s just part of that 

brainwashing that we need to be aware of and that’s why getting 

information is so important. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Scarlatoiu, you underscored that up to 90 percent 

of the North Korean women and girls in China fall prey to traffickers in China who sell them into sexual slavery. 

As you might know, I am the prime author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and I tried for years to get China designated 

as a Tier 3 country, an egregious violator, in part because of the 

exploding sex trafficking within mainland China but also in large 

part too because of so many North Koreans who were so 

horrifically abused. 

55

And, again, Ms. Scholte provided us with several witnesses over 

the course of several hearings who were themselves trafficked and 

told their stories again before this committee. 

This year, the Trump administration has designated China Tier 

3, and in the narrative explaining that, great focus is put on this 

trafficking problem. 

They are not in freedom. They are in another kind of slavery that 

they are trying to escape from in North Korea. 

So my question would be, because we do have votes now so I am 

going to ask a number of questions so that we can finish before the 

voting is over, but if you could speak to that. 

We are at the sanctions part now. Tier 3 has been designated. 

At the time and place—anytime, any day now, the administration 

could announce a series of sanctions toward China. 

What would you recommend that we do? There is a lot on the 

plate that could be imposed and I think a designation without a 

sanction weakens the designation significantly. 

Secondly, on the issue of refoulement, which you spoke to in your 

testimony, we know that the periodic review is coming up in November 2018 under the Refugee Convention. 

NGOs can begin submitting in the spring. But it seems to me, 

this ought to be an engraved invitation for every one of us to make 

China—China’s sending people back to death—they are taking poison to avoid it—and certainly to torture and mistreatment in the 

gulag system. 

This is an opportunity to begin even right now, and your 

thoughts on that. And, of course, there are some—under customary 

international law there are other obligations to which China is 

obliged to. Any thoughts along those lines? 

There was a report today of five refugee camps—you heard it 

earlier mentioned to our two previous witnesses. Is that because 

China thinks something is going to happen vis-a-vis a war? Or is 

this just another modality of control that they are seeking to impose? 

The ICC, unfortunately, has had a very checkered—two convictions in 14 years. The International Criminal Court has not been 

that robust. But it seems to me, as you have been saying, and as 

the U.N. Commission has found, or at least would lead us to believe, when you’re complicit in these crimes you’re complicit, and 

it would seem to me that not just North Korea but the prosecutors 

should be looking at China’s complicity in this terrible death spiral 

that they are on now. 

So if you could speak to that. I have many other questions but 

we will run out of time, so please. 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. Mr. Chairman, certainly, there is ample evidence of the abuse that has affected North Korean women in China 

for more than two decades now. 

We have to take that leap—link China directly to the egregious 

human rights violations affecting North Koreans and in particular 

affecting North Korean refugees. 

Perhaps we need to take a hard look at certain areas, certain industries, certain areas of the economy that are more closely related 

to this issue of North Korean refugees in China—the lack of protection, the vulnerability of these refugees, China’s refoulement of 

56

North Korean refugees—take a very hard look at areas that could 

be perhaps subjected to sanctions. 

In—as far as the refoulement issue is concerned, we often hear 

the question as to why China is so reluctant to provide protection 

to these North Korean refugees. 

I would take the liberty of sharing a thought with you. Perhaps 

China is afraid of a development similar to the European picnic of 

the summer of 1989 when Hungary opened its border to East Germans and this outflow of East Germans out of East Germany was 

one of the fundamental factors that ultimately brought about the 

fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Clearly, if there is one step that China can take to make a huge 

difference—a very significant difference, that would be to stop the 

forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees. 

The International Criminal Court—the referral of the Kim regime by the U.N. Security Council to the International Criminal 

Court was one of the fundamental recommendations made in the 

February 2014 report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry. North 

Korea is not a party to the International Criminal Court. 

Of course, the problem with the Security Council is that the P5 

members—the permanent members—have veto power and China is 

one of them. The Russian Federation is, of course, another one. 

So we face the prospect of a Chinese or Russian veto. Where we 

are right now is that for a fourth time yesterday, the North Korean 

human rights issue was placed on the agenda of the U.N. Security 

Council. 

Now, placing the issue on the agenda is a procedural matter that 

requires nine out of 15 votes of permanent and nonpermanent 

members. Once the issue is taken up, it becomes substantive and 

it becomes subject to a veto by one of the P5 members. 

Another possibility that has been raised by international human 

rights NGOs is the creation of a special tribunal through the General Assembly. 

The tool kit of accountability is a complex one and pursuing the 

avenue of the International Criminal Court is just one of many 

avenues we can consider. 

Mr. KING. You raised an interesting question about dealing with 

the Tier 3 sanctions on China. The difficulty of looking at sanctions 

as the key on these issues with the North Koreans is that, again, 

we are in a situation where we are trying to get the Chinese to 

solve the North Korean problem for us because we have such limited abilities to do it. 

This is our problem with sanctions on the nuclear weapons and 

we are going to be in trouble if we take that same route on human 

rights. 

There is a real link between sanctions on trafficking and repatriation. The reason why these women are trafficked is because they 

will be repatriated if they don’t have some way to hide their presence there. 

And if we can move the Chinese in a direction where they allow 

the North Korean refugees to leave China, we don’t have to worry 

about sanctions for trafficking because there won’t be a trafficking 

problem. These women will leave. I think we need to sort of look 

at it in a way that will allow us to work with the Chinese and try 

57

to put some pressure on them to make some progress on repatriation rather than saying, you know, let’s slap more sanctions on 

the Chinese. 

It’s an issue that’s not easy. It’s an issue that’s complicated. But 

it’s an issue that’s connected and we need to figure out how to do 

it. 

And I think that’s the difficulty of dealing with China. We don’t 

like what the Chinese do. We don’t like their human rights record. 

We don’t like their obstacles in dealing with the North Korean 

human rights issue or the North Korean nuclear issue. 

The argument has been we are probably better to try to work 

with the Chinese because they are suffering from the same problem 

and if we can work with them maybe we will have some progress. 

It is helpful to have the threat of sanctions because it’s very clear 

that the sanctions on nuclear weapons are successful because the 

Chinese are beginning to enforce them. The Chinese are beginning 

to enforce them because we have imposed sanctions on the Chinese 

for not enforcing them. 

So we need to balance that process out. But I think we need to 

focus U.S. Government policy not just on the nuclear weapons issue 

but also on the human rights issue because that’s the key to opening up North Korea. 

Mr. SMITH. Before I go to Ms. Scholte, Andrew Natsios testified 

before our subcommittee a couple years ago and that was precisely 

his major point—that we have delinked human rights from the nuclear issue in the same way we did it with Iran. And when—if it’s 

a sidebar issue or something that’s done out in the hallway, it 

doesn’t get done. 

And when we fail, as we have failed, unfortunately, on the nuclear side, what do you have to show for it? People’s human rights 

have not been advanced——

Mr. KING. Exactly. That’s why we need a special envoy for North 

Korea human rights to make sure that that is part of the discussion. Yes. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Well, for bringing up sanctions, I did want to say 

one thing about North Korea sanctions, which has been reported 

because you brought up the topic of sanctions, Free North Korea 

Radio and other entities have reported that the people of North 

Korea—one of the big worries that we all had with the sanctions 

against North Korea is not wanting to hurt the people of North 

Korea—that it be very carefully targeted at Kim Jong-un and the 

elites. 

And what we are hearing now is not only have the sanctions not 

hurt the people of North Korea but they are actually doing better, 

that the—because there is products that they can’t export that they 

are having to dump on the North Koreans. 

So all these costs have gone down. So I wanted to talk about 

that. But on the sanctions regarding China, first of all, I want to 

start out by saying this. 

I think we have really failed the people of China and I hope that 

we don’t continue to fail the people of North Korea. 

But I think we have really failed the people of China because we 

have turned back on the many horrific human rights violations 

that are happening against the people of China at all different levVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:55 Jan 30, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\121217\27811 SHIRL
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els, and this has been going on for decades for all our, I would say, 

economic greed. 

And I would cite two experts on this. Dr. Greg Autry, the professor who wrote the book ‘‘Death by China’’ and explores the intellectual property theft and the things that the Chinese—and I am 

talking very specifically about the regime in China—have done and 

profited at the expense of the American people, and also Dr. Yang 

Jianli, who I know you have—who has been just an amazing leader 

in the Chinese human rights movement. But we have not—we have 

betrayed people like them that are fighting for the human rights 

of the people of China as well. 

And so I think any kind of sanctions or pressure on the Xi 

Jinping regime is critically important. He is culpable. He is committing crimes against humanity. 

And on the refugee camps, that was the rumors we have been 

hearing off and on for decades. Why would we need refugee camps? 

Just let the UNHCR go in there and start letting these people go. 

And I remember one time when there was a planeload of North 

Koreans that the Chinese allowed leave. It was in the summer because I remember I was on vacation. It was probably, like, 10 years 

ago. 

But they let a planeload go and RFA called me up, tracked me 

down on vacation and said, ‘‘Suzanne, Suzanne, do you think the 

Chinese are changing their policy? They are letting a whole planeload of North Koreans back to South Korea.’’ And I said, ‘‘Not unless the planes keep flying,’’ and there were not any more flights. 

So I am not sure about these refugee camps. There is not a need 

for one. North Koreans are the only refugees in the world that have 

a place to go for immediate resettlement because they are citizens 

of South Korea under Article 2 of the South Korean constitution. 

They are unlike any refugees in the world. And I know we have 

a refugee crisis going on because of tensions in the Middle East 

and North Africa. But North Koreans don’t—we have Hanawon, 

that’s the refugee camp. 

Finally, on China fearing refugees, here’s the thing. If China 

fears being overwhelmed by refugees if it showed some compassion, 

all it’s doing is lifting off the pressure on Kim Jong-un that’s causing all the tensions to begin with and relieving him of any reason 

to reform so that people don’t want to leave. 

Talk to North Koreans. They don’t want to leave their homeland. 

They love their homeland. They are only leaving because of the 

horrific human rights violations of a dictator there. 

So what China is doing is prolonging the dictatorship by forcing 

them back and being complicit in crimes against humanity. 

And I think that more and more Chinese are recognizing this. 

They are speaking out that the future is with South Korea. I believe that China fears having a strong unified democracy on its border and that’s the reason why they are continuing to send the refugees back. They just don’t want to see a Korea unified. 

I always point out that if the regime collapsed there is not going 

to be any refugee problem. The thing you’re going to have to control is people trying to go there. And I always tease the pastors 

from—because the pastors, the Methodists and the Presbyterians, 

are going to be fighting to plant their churches there. 

59

Hyundai and everybody else is going to be going there to build 

plants. All the Korean Americans are going to be going home because that’s their ancestral homeland—and the real fear is—what 

we will have to be concerned about is protecting the development 

in North Korea and protecting the North Korean people once that 

regime is gone from the flood of people coming in. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

We have heard instances of U.N. agencies approving technology 

transfers to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions and the 

World Intellectual Property Organization—WIPO—has had problems with that, and we have raised them. 

I actually had a hearing in February 2016 on that. We have written letters. It’s come to very little outcome. Your thoughts on that? 

It seems to me that for sanctions to work it’s not just the countries but it’s also U.N. agencies that need to be in compliance. Your 

thoughts? 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. Chairman Smith, I believe you are referring to 

an agent called Tabun that the North Koreans were actually licensed to produce. It’s one component needed in the production of 

chemical weapons, I believe. 

Our organization, the Committee for Human Rights in North 

Korea, has focused more on the humanitarian arm of the U.N. and 

one point that we have tried to make time and time again is that 

U.N. agencies involved in humanitarian operations inside North 

Korea should be fully cognizant of human rights concerns, of the 

U.N. Commission of Inquiry report, the recommendations of the 

U.N. Commission of Inquiry and apply a human rights up front approach to their work. 

And I will take the liberty of giving a very quick example. Last 

year, we documented Prison Camp Number 12 in Chongo-ri, North 

Hamgyong Province. In the aftermath of Typhoon Lionrock the 

U.N. was conducting a fact finding mission in the vicinity of the 

camp. 

We managed to acquire satellite images through the cloud cover 

proving that the camp had been affected by the flooding caused by 

Typhoon Lionrock. 

We urged U.N. agencies to include the most vulnerable segments 

of the population, especially prisoners, in the fact finding missions 

and humanitarian operations in North Korea. 

For example, the World Health Organization has a program 

called Health in Prisons applied throughout the developing world. 

Why not seek ways to apply some of these programs to North 

Korea? 

One positive aspect here, although action on the ground is lacking is that senior U.N. officials were very responsive, including, at 

the time, the Deputy Secretary General, and in his most recent report that U.N. Special Rapporteur on North Korean human rights, 

on human rights in the DPRK. Mr. Thomas Ojea Quintana did specifically mention the need to address the most vulnerable in North 

Korea including prisoners. 

Mr. KING. Thank you for what you did, having a hearing to focus 

on the U.N. problem. U.N. agencies are like any big bureaucracy 

where you have people who aren’t aware of what is going on in 

other places. 

60

They are, however, very attentive to what the U.S. Congress has 

to say and I think your efforts are extremely useful in dealing with 

these kind of problems with U.N. agencies not being aware of sanctions and so forth. 

Thank you. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Ditto. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scholte, you said it’s worse now under Xi 

Jinping. Ms. Hee said it’s worse under Kim Jong-un. It seems like 

it’s been worsening since 2011. 

Dr. King, if I could go back to your testimony where you said it 

reached a high. Now it’s gone down. It’s less than 1,500 last year. 

It could be even worse this year. 

How much worse can it get before the Security Council—well, 

they may never do it because of the veto. But I am a great believer 

in hybrid courts. 

I’ve been pushing for 4 years that there be a special court for 

Syria and Iraq. Got a resolution passed. Had a series of hearings 

on it. 

We had the former prosecutor for Sierra Leone testify at two of 

those hearings and, of course, they put Charles Taylor behind bars 

for 50 years. So, it shows that hybrid courts get results. 

There are imperfections but they do get results. The ICC often 

doesn’t. So I think your point was well taken, Mr. Scarlatiou. 

There are other alternatives and they have been put on the table. 

I think we should pursue that aggressively. We still may run into 

the Security Council problem. But even the effort might have some 

mitigating effect on the Chinese barbaric behavior and, of course, 

the parallel barbaric behavior by the North Korean Government. 

Your thoughts on that? 

Mr. KING. The International Bar Association held a proceeding 

a couple weeks ago looking at what information there is about 

crimes against humanity being committed in North Korea. 

They concluded that there is sufficient solid evidence on 10 of 11 

crimes against humanity to hold individuals in North Korea responsible. 

I think we need to focus on this idea of accountability. I think 

we need to go as far as we can. I think it’s useful to have the Security Council debating and discussing the human rights situation in 

North Korea. 

Even if we aren’t going to get a vote out of the Security Council, 

it raises the issue to that level. It puts pressure on the North Koreans and we need to continue that effort. I think what you were trying to do with Syria is something that would be worth trying to do 

with North Korea. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. I just—I met a young woman who escaped with 

her 14-year-old daughter. This was about 7 years ago. And she told 

me that when her 14-year-old daughter got repatriated—they got—

they got to China, they got arrested. Her 14-year-old daughter 

got—they got separated. 

The 14-year-old daughter got repatriated and beaten to death by 

a border guard. And when I heard that story, I was so horrified. 

How could any man beat a 14-year-old girl who was simply trying 

to have a better life? 

61

But at that point, I started pushing the South Korean Government to convene a tribunal because at that point the South Korean 

Human Rights Commission had already collected 532 cases of these 

types of abuses where—and the people knew, gave testimonies. 

But when they put that report together they never released the 

names, and I think one thing was really encouraging that Ambassador King was involved with during President Obama’s administration was starting to name names—naming names of the perpetrators of these crimes, which I think is so important. 

We are part of the U.N. Commission—I am sorry, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry that’s pushing for the ICC referral. 

However, we can’t wait, and even if he gets prosecuted at the 

ICC and the ICC determines he was committing crimes against humanity, well, he could still be dictator. 

It might not have any impact. So we have got to look at other 

ways and I’ve always believed that hybrid court, whatever, there 

has to be a procedure to start talking about these issues because 

I think we need to put people in the regime on notice. 

They’ve got to wake up every morning, the people that are keeping this regime going—they have to wake up every morning with 

two choices: Total devotion and loyalty to Kim Jong-un or having 

their brains splattered along with their family by anti-aircraft 

weaponry. I mean, that’s what they face every day. 

So how do you get that to stop? You’ve got to tell them, ‘‘You’re 

going to be held accountable for your crimes.’’ But at the same 

time, you’ve got to reach out to them through programs like Freedom North Korea, through the defectors, because there are defector 

elites who are reaching out to other elites and showing them that 

there is another alternative—there is another option. 

But I think proceeding on these kinds of legal courts is absolutely critical to put pressure on them to show them they are going 

to be held accountable. 

There has to be a way to stop that border guard from beating to 

death a 14-year-old girl when his name gets mentioned in a South 

Korean tribunal. But also Bob cited the International Bar Association. They did release their report this morning, which found that 

the crimes against humanity meaning that almost every single 

statute—there was just one they were lacking the evidence. But 

the evidence is there of the crime against humanity being committed by Kim. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, and maybe it’ll be the last question. 

You’ve been very generous with your time. How would you rate the 

effectiveness of the Human Rights Council toward China? 

I remember when it was called the Human Rights Commission. 

I traveled frequently to Geneva, would try to lobby people on particular issues including China. I actually went to a China press 

conference and asked some questions about human rights and they 

shut it down. 

They were so unwilling and so brittle when it comes to criticism. 

They just ended the press conference because they didn’t want to 

answer serious questions about human rights. 

I’ve met with Prince Zeid, the high commissioner for human 

rights. I am deeply disappointed, and I would appreciate your 

62

thoughts, one way or the other. Maybe you think he’s doing a good 

job. 

When it comes to Israel they are obsessed with holding Israel to 

account for things, for instance, settlements. Security Council Resolution 2334 makes it criminal—illegal for certain settlements, and 

Abbas is now petitioning the ICC to open up a case for prosecution. 

Are you kidding me? Then you have gross violations of human 

rights being committed every day with complicity by the Chinese 

but also with complicity with the Chinese. And, there is very little—a statement made here or there but it’s never offensive in 

terms of trying to hold them accountable. 

I think it makes the credibility of the Human Rights Commission 

suspect. They cannot be politicized. We know that there are rogue 

nations who make a beeline to sit on the council in order to run 

interference to their own accountability being held and they work 

in tandem with each other to keep the rogue nations not focused 

upon. 

So if you could speak to that and particularly to Prince Zeid, because his black list is coming out very shortly of companies doing 

business with entities in what they falsely call occupied territory, 

and I say falsely because I believe it’s false. 

But it’s a very, very bad omen, I think, for the council to be so 

politicized and then look askance when it comes to China. 

Your thoughts? 

Mr. KING. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to deal 

with the Human Rights Council. On the one hand, they have a 

very high-minded goal and objective. On the other hand, the realities of politics are constantly getting in the way. 

Israel is one of the most troubling of issues because the votes are 

in the wrong place and it becomes a very difficult problem. 

The one bright light with the Human Rights Council is the treatment of North Korea. North Korea has not sat on the Human 

Rights Council; it has never been elected a member of the council. 

North Korea has gone through the Universal Periodic Review 

process. They’ve been under some pressure because of that process 

and there have been some indications of improvement in noncontroversial areas like assistance for people with disabilities and 

that kind of thing. 

We have been able to get out of the Human Rights Council every 

year since 2004 a tough strong resolution that is critical of North 

Korea. We have been able to refer things to the General Assembly. 

We have been able to get tough strong resolutions. 

As far as North Korea Policy is concerned, the Human Rights 

Council is a good instrument. As far as Israel is concerned, it’s not. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SMITH. I mean, even today, December 11th, Prince Zeid has 

called for North Korea to be referred to the ICC. 

Mr. KING. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. That is easy lift. That’s not all that hard to say that. 

Mr. KING. No. [Laughter.] 

Mr. SMITH. But what about its accomplice, China? And I appreciate your thoughts, too. 

63

Mr. KING. The issue with China is more complicated. China is a 

permanent member. It can veto anything of substance in the Security Council. 

Mr. SMITH. But his recommendation—I mean, they can reject 

it——

Mr. KING. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. But the credibility and gravitas that the 

high commissioner would bring to saying, ‘‘Hey, you too, China.’’

Mr. KING. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. ‘‘We are not letting you off the hook. You are 

complicit in these horrific crimes.’’

Mr. KING. Yes. It’s a tough one. You’re a politician. These countries are dealing with politics. We are making progress. We are not 

there yet. 

I think we need to continue the effort and we need to continue 

to criticize—the way you and other colleagues in Congress have 

done—to put pressure on the U.N. agencies for what they are not 

doing. 

But I think we should also be careful not to throw the baby out 

with the bath. Praise them for what they’ve done in areas like 

what they’ve done on North Korea. I think we have made real 

progress on that. 

Mr. SMITH. Before we go to Greg, we ought to remind everyone 

and begin assembling lists. We just recently passed the Frank Wolf 

International Religious Freedom Act. I did sponsor it, and it calls 

for designated persons, people that we can hold to account. 

The Magnitsky Act and, certainly, the Global Magnitsky Act 

gives us an incredible tool on a vast array of human rights issues 

to say so and so, so and so, so and so, and begin honing in on the 

individuals who commit atrocities all over the world. 

We got the CPC designation, both China and North Korea, under 

the Religious Freedom Act. So sanctions can be levied there. And 

then, of course we know that, we have the Trafficking Victims Protection Act sanctions, Tier 3, where they can be levied there as 

well. 

So we have got all these tools. Let’s use them. 

Please, Greg. 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. I fully agree with Ambassador King that there 

is serious tension between the lofty goals, ideals, and principles 

and standards that the U.N. Human Rights Council is supposed to 

uphold and the politicization of the council. 

It’s highly politicized, of course, as a human rights NGO dealing 

with the U.N. and U.N. agencies. My colleagues and board members know that it’s extraordinarily frustrating many times—most of 

the time to deal with U.N. agencies and yet, as Ambassador King 

said, if there is one success story of the U.N. Human Rights Council that was the establishment of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry 

through a resolution that didn’t even go to a vote. It was passed 

by consensus by all 47 members of the Human Rights Council. 

So North Korea is, after all, the saving grace of the Human 

Rights Council, if I may say so, and we do hope to continue to see 

good action on North Korean human rights issues. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Scholte. 

64

Ms. SCHOLTE. Yes. I think we need tremendous reform at the 

U.N. I think it’s, in some cases, it’s a joke. The Human Rights 

Council—why can’t we have a Human Rights Council where the 

membership is based on the countries observing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—just a few of them? 

I mean, let’s reestablish what the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights stood for and let’s have, you know, you can be on 

the Human Rights Council if your country, well, maybe—maybe at 

least 60 percent. 

How about just 60 percent, and I’ll give you a D minus to be on 

the council. It’s ridiculous what’s happening. And while it’s a bright 

light on North Korea, I am not sure that it’s done anything. It’s 

done nothing, actually, to improve the lives of the people of North 

Korea. 

The lives of the people of North Korea have not improved. We 

just know more about it. That’s all that’s happened. We just know 

how much they are suffering. The reality is it’s because of the people of North Korea, not because of the dictatorship and certainly 

not because of anything that the U.N. has done. So it may be a 

good mouthpiece on North Korea but it’s failing on the human 

rights and suffering of so many other people. 

Mr. SMITH. You know, I thought in your prepared testimony you 

made an excellent point as to how we should honor the fact that 

the North Koreans themselves, whether they be in country or in 

South Korea or anywhere else, are really making the difference 

and we need to get behind them as never before in those efforts. 

Maybe you might want to elaborate on that. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Well, why don’t I show them the portrait? They 

smuggled it back in. They smuggled it back into the hearing. 

This is an example, okay. Once again, this was made in 

Pyongyang. This is the response to messages broadcast on Free 

North Korea Radio, smuggled out at great risk. Two brothers took 

3 months to make this. 

If they had been caught making this, they and their families 

would have been executed. So this is just a testament to the importance of reaching out to the people of North Korea. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

And what Ms. Scholte is not saying is that there is a portrait of 

herself and one of Chairman Ed Royce as well. 

Is there anything else you would like to add before we conclude? 

And again, thank you for your insights. It gives us a lot of actionable things to do and I always appreciate that. 

Mr. KING. Thank you for this hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ambassador King. 

Mr. SCARLATOIU. Thank you for the hearing. Thank you for your 

dedication and the inspiration that you provide to all of us. 

Mr. SMITH. You inspire us. Believe me. 

And Ms. Scholte, thank you. 

Ms. SCHOLTE. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:41 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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Subconnnittee on A1'1ica, G-loballlealth, Global !hunan Rights, and Intenmtimml Organizations 

Christophel' H. Smith (R-...,-,n, Chainnan 

n:::ccmbcr 8. 2017 

TO' MEMBER~ OF THE CO~I~HTTEE 0'1 FOREIG'I AFFAIR~ 

You arc: resp.::ctfully re4uested to attend an OPP.N hearing of the Committee on for~gn Atlairs. to he held by the Suhcommittee Afi·ica, 

Global Health. Global Human Rights. and hi1<:TIIalimal ClrganiLations in Room 2200 of 1hc Rllybum House Office Building (and available lih": 

on the Committee \vcbsitc at hll~''"·For:R~~~.hou,,::.oov): 

DATE: Tuesday. December 12. 2017 

2:00p.m. 

Prol..:c1ing :-Jor1h K.or..:an Rdugws 

:liAs. Hycona Ji 

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OJ-chmrpers(m 

\Vorldwid~,; Coalilionlu Stop G~,;rwcid-.: in :-Jorth Korea 

\Ts. Han Ga He10 (al1c1.r;) 

North Kur~n D..;fcdor 

,\mmuncer and Sound Engine<:r 

Fr.:e '\Jorlh Korea Radio 

Panelll 

't\k Or.:g Scarlaloi u 

E;.,_..:;culiv..: Dir..:;clor 

TI1<: Committee tOr ITuman Rights in North Korea 

Th..: Honorabk Robcrl hlng 

Senior Adviser 

Korea Chair 

Cdller fm StmkgJ.c rmd h1lema1ional Studies 

(1-'ixmer f_/.S. Speci<ll l:.."nvoyftx North J:.orcan Human RJghts issues) 

}ds. Su.Lmme Scholl.: 

Pr.::sidcnt 

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from the songbun system of social and political classification to which the government subjects 

them. But even if they were not refugees when they left North Korea, they become so (that is, 

refugees sur place) because of the well-founded fear of persecution and punishment they face 

upon return. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 

in 2017 called on North Korea to decriminalize illegal border crossing, and because of the high 

number of women forcibly repatriated, to ensure that the women "are not subjected to 

invasive body searches, sexual violence and forced abortions, and that their rights to life and to 

a fair trial are respected." 5 It further called upon North Korea to allow international 

organizations "access to all women's detention facilities." 6 

UN bodies have also sent warnings to China, which the UN COl found to be enabling North 

Korea's crimes. A letter signed by COl Chair, Justice Michael Kirby, and appended to its 400-

page report, warned Chinese officials that they could be found to be "aiding and abetting 

crimes against humanity" by sharing information with North Korea's security bodies and turning 

back North Koreans to conditions of danger.7 It challenged China's claims that North Koreans 

entering China illegally are economic migrants who must be deported, and that those returned 

are not subject to punishment. 

On occasion China has allowed North Koreans to proceed to South Korea, but these cases are 

few and far between.8 Over the years China has tolerated thousands of North Koreans residing 

illegally in its country, some 'married' to Chinese men, but the North Koreans have no rights, 

are vulnerable to exploitation and bribes, constantly fear deportation and may be expelled. The 

UN Committee against Torture (CAT) in 2016 described China as practicing a "rigorous policy of 

forcibly repatriating all nationals of the DPRK" on the grounds that they cross the border 

illegally for economic reasons.9 It called on China to set up a refugee determination process for 

North Koreans and allow UNHCR access to border areas. The CAT noted that it had 100 

testimonies showing that North Koreans forcibly returned were "systematically" subjected to 

torture and ill-treatment and recommended UNHCR monitoring of North Koreans forcibly 

returned to assure that they are not subject to torture. 

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited China in 2006 as UN High Commissioner 

for Refugees, he told Chinese officials that forcibly repatriating North Koreans without any 

determination process and where they could be persecuted on return stands in violation of the 

Refugee Convention. UNHCR also proposed a special humanitarian status for North Koreans to 

enable them to obtain temporary documentation, access to services and protection from 

5 UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Concluding Observations, 

CEDAW/C/PRK/C0/2-4, 17 November 2017, para. 45 (c). 6 Ibid., para. 45 (d). 7 UN General Assembly, Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the DPRK, 

A/HRC/25/CRP.l, 7 February 2014, para. 1197 [henceforth COl report 2]. 8 See Roberta Cohen, "China's Forced Repatriation of North Korean Refugees Incurs United Nations Censure/' 

International Journal of Korean Studies, Spring/Summer 2014, pp. 72-3. 9 UN Committee against Torture, CAT/C/CHN/C0/5, 3 February 2016, paras. 46-48. 

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forced return. To the refugee agency, North Koreans are deemed "persons of concern," 

meriting humanitarian protection. 

To date, there has been little progress in persuading North Korea or China to cooperate with 

the international community. Nonetheless, China's more critical stance toward North Korea of 

late as well as reports of its making refugee contingency plans in the event of a crisis in North 

Korea, 10 might lead to more open discussions, the relaxing of some of its policies and the 

possible modification of others. 

The following recommendations are offered with a view to promoting protection for North 

Korean refugees. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

First, an overall international strategy is needed for dealing with the refugee issue. To this end, 

the United States should propose a multilateral approach to the North Korean refugee 

situation. Just as international burden sharing has been introduced for other refugee 

populations, so should it be developed here. The North Korean refugee situation is not an 

economic migrant question for China and North Korea to decide alone according to their own 

agreements. Other countries are profoundly affected, in particular South Korea whose 

Constitution offers citizenship to North Koreans and already houses more than 31,000 North 

Koreans who have fled over the past two decades. Countries in East, Southeast and Central 

Asia, East and West Europe, and North America have admitted thousands upon thousands, of 

North Korean refugees. Working together with UNHCR, a multilateral approach could be 

designed based on principles of non-refoulement and human rights protection. SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres, who has extensive experience with this and other refugee situations, 

should be asked to initiate the process. 

Second, the United States, South Korea and allied governments should make China's treatment 

of North Korean refugees a high priority in their bilateral dialogues with China. They should 

make known their willingness to admit North Koreans who cross the border without permission 

and should call on China to allow UNHCR to begin a determination process so that North 

Koreans could apply for refugee status and remain temporarily in China while their requests are 

being processed. The United States and its allies should remind China that more than 150 

governments in the General Assembly have called upon China as a country neighboring North 

Korea to cease the deportation of North Koreans because of the terrible mistreatment they 

endure upon return. Chinese officials should be encouraged to build on the instances where 

China has allowed North Koreans to leave for the South, increase such cases and introduce a 

moratorium on forced repatriations on humanitarian grounds to remain in effect until such 

time as North Korea ceases its persecution and punishment of those repatriated. A new 

approach would enhance China's international standing, encourage other states in Asia to 

uphold international norms, and exert influence on North Korea to modify its practices. China 

10 See Jane Perlez, /(China Girds for North Korean Refugees," New York Times, December 12, 2017; and David E. 

Sanger, "Tillerson Speaks on a Largely Secret North Korea Contingency Plan," New York Times, December 18, 2017. 

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for its part will need to be assured that the United States and other countries are not seeking to 

forcibly reunify Korea, destabilize the North and expand United States influence. Certainly, the 

most effective way to reduce the number of North Koreans going into China is not for the 

Chinese and North Koreans to push back North Koreans but for the DPRK to begin to provide 

for the well-being and security of its population. 

Third, the United States should expand its practice of identifying and sanctioning North Korean 

as well as Chinese officials and offices involved in forced repatriations and make them aware 

that they could be held accountable in future trials. 11 Special Rapporteur Ojea Quintana 

recently observed that "The more the international community has insisted on the necessity to 

seek justice ... , the more the [North Korean] authorities have seemingly opened to a 

conversation with human rights mechanisms on ways to fulfil their obligations ... " 12 In response 

to North Koreans' fear of accountability, he described reports, albeit unconfirmed, of improved 

practices in detention facilities, including toward pregnant women. 13 North Korea also 

responded for the first time to a United Nations human rights inquiry about returned refugees 

by providing some statistics. It claimed that only 33 North Korean women out of 6,452 returned 

from 2005 to 2016 had been punished. 14 This small number of course contradicted the findings 

of many UN-commissioned reports that spoke of the routine punishment of tens of thousands 

returned. But North Korea's engagement in the conversation shows that international 

demarches have had some effect. It is important therefore for the United States to strongly 

support the collection of evidence about forcibly returned North Koreans and make sure that 

the Seoul office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which is tasked with 

documenting information with a view to accountability, has sufficient resources and staff to 

perform its functions effectively. In particular, the United States should contribute to the hiring 

of international criminal justice experts to review existing evidence, including on forced 

repatriations, and to promote the effective working of a central information and evidence 

repository to be set up in 2018 to facilitate future prosecutions. It should contribute the names 

and information it has collected to the central repository. 

Fourth, the United States should call on the international humanitarian organizations it funds to 

request, when appropriate, international access to detention facilities and reeducation camps 

that house political prisoners, among these, significant numbers of forcibly repatriated women. 

Such an opportunity arose in September 2016 when a typhoon struck the northeast and 

flooded not only schools, clinics, roads and agricultural lands, but also a reeducation through 

labor camp, Kyo-hwa-so Number 12, housing some 5,000 prisoners, including up to 1,000 

11 In October 2017, the Department of the Treasury announced sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and 

three entities for hunting down of asylum seekers abroad and other abuses. See "U.S. Sanctions North Koreans for 

'Flagrant' Rights Abuse, Reuters, October 26, 2017. 12 SR Report, para. 3. 13 SR Report, ibid., para. 26; see also Cohen, "China's Forced Repatriation of North Korean Refugees," pp. 74-75. 14 North Korea told this to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 

2017. See Elizabeth Shim, "North Korea: Repatriated women defectors are not punished," UPI, August 4, 2017. 

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forcibly repatriated women. 15 HRNK provided the UN with satellite imagery of the flooded 

camp, which the Secretary-General included in his report to the General Assembly, 16 but the 

humanitarian agencies did not try to help the persons inside. It appeared they were reluctant to 

antagonize North Korean officials and possibly undermine humanitarian operations for other 

flood victims, despite the fact that information was available to them showing that the women 

and other prisoners in the camp were given starvation rations, lacked medical care and were 

subject to exploitation and forced labor. 17 The humanitarian organizations, it should be noted, 

had some leverage in this case because North Korea had requested the aid and had to listen to 

their views. While North Korea could have turned down the request, at least the question of 

entering a flooded camp and reaching its vulnerable people would have been on the table as a 

legitimate 'ask' to be revisited in future. 

It is important that the United States make known to the World Food Program, UNICEF and 

other humanitarian agencies that they must stand up for all people at risk, not just those North 

Korea might choose to assist, and use the leverage they have to generate meaningful dialogue 

on the human rights principles central to humanitarian work. Failure to do so will condone the 

Kim regime's persecution and marginalization of the people it considers disloyal, contrary to the 

principles upon which humanitarian organizations are founded. Building upon General 

Assembly resolutions that call on North Korea to grant unimpeded humanitarian access to all 

affected persons, including those in detention facilities and prisons,18 the United States should 

reinforce the recent call made by the UN Special Rapporteur to humanitarian agencies: he said 

they should "ensure" that their programs benefit "vulnerable groups, including those who are 

in detention facilities, prison camps and political prison camps." 19 It is also time for the United 

States to urge Secretary-General Guterres to apply to North Korea the UN policy of 2013 which 

he endorsed- namely the Human Rights up Front (HRuF) approach, which calls upon the entire 

UN system to come together in the face of serious human rights violations and take steps on 

behalf of the victims. 

Fifth, the United States should develop contingency plans with China for addressing a crisis in 

the north that also encompasses protection and assistance for refugees and internally displaced 

persons (IDPs). Significant numbers of North Koreans can be expected to flee to China and 

South Korea in the event of an emergency, and even more become internally displaced, making 

it desirable for the United States and South Korea to develop plans with China for managing 

migration.'° China is already reported to be constructing refugee camps along its border areas 

15 Roberta Cohen, "UN Humanitarian Actors and North Korea's Prison Camps/' International Journal of Korean 

Studies, Spring/Summer 2017, pp. 1-24. 16 UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, A/72/279, 

3 August 2017, para. 37. 17 COl report 2, para. 804. 18 UN General Assembly, Resolution on the Situation of human rights in the DPRK, A/C.3/72/L.40, 31 October 2017, 

paras. 2(vi), 5, and 15(m). 19 SR Report, para. 48. 20 See Roberta Cohen, 11Human Rights and Humanitarian Planning for Crisis in North Korea/' International Journal 

of Korean Studies, Fall/Winter 2015, pp. 11-16. 

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with North Korea. 21 An agreement among the three under United Nations auspices should aim 

at stabilization ofthe peninsula, provision of material aid, protection of displaced persons, and 

incentives and opportunities to build and transform the country in accordance with 

international human rights, humanitarian and refugee standards and humane treatment of 

displaced persons. 

Finally, the United States should revisit any restrictions now placed on the admission of North 

Korean refugees that could conflict with the spirit and intent of the North Korean Human Rights 

Act (2004). Our government should make known its readiness, given the persecution and 

punishment to which North Koreans are subject, to increase the number of North Korean 

refugees admitted to this country. In FY 2017, only 12 were reported to be admitted, 

contributing to a total of 212 since 2006. While the vast majority of North Koreans will choose 

to seek refuge in South Korea, some have reasons for seeking to resettle in the United States, 

and should not be discouraged. As Victor Cha and Robert Gallucci have recommended the 

United States should "seek public and private sector funding" for "educational scholarships and 

vocational training," 22 in particular from the Korean American community, to empower the 

North Koreans already admitted to this country and help them overcome the traumas they 

experienced in fleeing one of the most tyrannical governments on the planet. 

21 See Jane Perlez, "China Girds for North Korean Refugees," New York Times, December 12, 2017; and "Report: 

China's Military Prepared for Collapse Scenario," Daily NK, May 5, 2014. 22 See Victor Cha and Robert L. Gallucci, Toward a New Policy and Strategy for North Korea, George W. Bush 

Institute, 2016, p. 8; and Education and Employment Among U.S.-Based North Koreans: Challenges and 

Opportunities, George W. Bush Institute, 2016. 

6