IV 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 141 

Calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Democratic People’s 

Republic of Korea to dismantle its labor camp system, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FEBRUARY 22, 2019 

Mr. CONAWAY (for himself and Mr. CONNOLLY) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to dismantle its labor 

camp system, and for other purposes. 

Whereas the public has long been aware of the labor camp 

system in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 

(North Korea) through continuous eye-witness and survivor accounts, and now-publicly available satellite technology; 

Whereas, according to The Hidden Gulag IV report, North 

Korea runs two kinds of prison camps, the kwan-li-so and 

the kyo-hwa-so, as well as ‘‘various types of short-term 

forced labour detention facilities’’; 

Whereas the most heinous camps, the kwan-li-so, are known 

as Prison Camp 14, 15, 16, 18, and 25 which contain 

roughly 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners; 


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•HRES 141 IH 

Whereas the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North 

Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017 states that ‘‘hundreds of thousands of inmates are estimated to have 

died’’; 

Whereas from 1981 to 2013, an estimated 400,000 people 

out of 500,000 imprisoned were killed in these labor 

camps; 

Whereas persons who are sent to these labor camps are forcibly disappeared and intended to die; 

Whereas the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on 

Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of 

Korea found, ‘‘the inmate population has been gradually 

eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, 

executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive 

rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and 

infanticide’’; 

Whereas up to three generations of a ‘‘violator’s’’ family will 

be sent to the labor camps even if no ‘‘wrongdoing’’ is 

found; 

Whereas, according to the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017, 

the Government of North Korea regularly and routinely 

commits crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, enslavement, forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearances, and other inhumane acts; 

Whereas, according to the best available evidence, some specific crimes identified by the Inquiry are— 

(1) ‘‘Christians are heavily persecuted and receive 

especially harsh treatment in prison camps, with one 

former prison guard testifying that ‘Christians were 


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•HRES 141 IH 

reactionaries and there were lots of instructions . . . to 

wipe out the seed of reactionaries’ ’’; 

(2) multiple witnesses watched prisoners tortured 

and killed on account of their religious affiliation; 

(3) a prisoner was raped by a security officer, after 

which the officer stuck a wooden stick inside her vagina 

and beat her lower body, resulting in her death within a 

week of the rape; 

(4) an abortion was induced by three men standing 

on a wooden plank placed on a pregnant prisoner’s stomach; 

(5) another witness lost consciousness after enduring 

a beating designed to trigger premature labor, with prison officials killing her baby before she could regain consciousness; 

(6) rape victims who feared being killed after becoming pregnant engaged in self-induced abortions by eating 

dirt and poisoning themselves with flower roots; 

(7) other rape victims self-induced abortions by inserting a rubber tube in their vaginas; 

(8) rape of teenage girls and their subsequent attempts to commit suicide by jumping in the Daedonggang River were so common that prison guards were deployed to the river to thwart them; 

(9) four pregnant women were executed for protesting the fact guards forced them to run down a mountain in a failed effort to induce miscarriages; 

(10) twelve prisoners were shot and killed in the 

commotion that ensued after the execution of the four 

pregnant women referenced in paragraph (9) and a 

former prison guard witnessed a prisoner’s newborn 

baby, most likely fathered by a high-ranking official, fed 

to guard dogs and killed; 


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•HRES 141 IH 

(11) female prisoners suspected of being impregnated by non-Korean men (namely Chinese men) are subjected to especially harsh treatment, with one witness describing a prisoner being injected with a labor-inducing 

drug and having to watch as a guard suffocated her newborn to death with a wet towel; 

(12) a former North Korean army nurse testified 

that she saw multiple abortions performed by injecting 

Ravenol (a motor oil) into the wombs of pregnant women 

and that babies born three to four months premature 

were ‘‘wrapped in newspapers and put in a bucket until 

buried’’ behind the detention center; 

(13) deliberate starvation, malnutrition and overwork are extremely common, resulting in the deaths of 

countless prisoners; 

(14) at one prison camp, 1,500 to 2,000 prisoners, 

mostly children, are believed to have died each year from 

malnutrition, while many other prisoners were beaten to 

death for failing to meet production quotas; 

(15) starving prisoners are regularly executed when 

caught scavenging for food; 

(16) at one prison camp, starving prisoners who 

were found digging up edible plants on a mountainside 

were shot to death; 

(17) at another camp, a witness saw a fellow inmate 

executed for stealing potatoes, while in a separate camp 

a witness described the execution of numerous prisoners 

caught scavenging for leftover food in prison guards’ 

quarters; 

(18) a prisoner was beaten to death for hiding stolen 

corn in his mouth; 


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•HRES 141 IH 

(19) public executions by firing squads or other 

means are common, especially for prisoners caught attempting to escape; 

(20) the existence of mass graves is well documented, including detailed descriptions of mass burial 

sites at or near prison camps, as well as testimony about 

bodies being ‘‘dumped’’ on mountainsides near prison 

camps; 

(21) an undisclosed location near a prison camp was 

regularly used for nighttime executions, with gunshots 

clearly audible; 

(22) at a 1990 prison riot, approximately 1,500 

prisoners were shot and killed, their bodies discarded in 

a closed mine; 

(23) in order to satisfy production quotas, inmates—including teenagers—were forced to perform fifteen to sixteen hours of hard labor per day; 

(24) one witness was forced to perform hard labor 

(carrying logs) when he was nine years old; 

(25) at one mine in particular, prisoners were forced 

to work 20 hours per day, with a witness testifying that 

approximately 200 prisoners died each year at that mine 

alone; 

(26) a soldier supervising a forced labor site at a political prison rolled a log down a steep mountainside, killing ten prisoners as they were carrying logs up the mountain; 

(27) the bodies of some prisoners who died as a result of forced labor or torture were thrown into the cells 

of prisoners in solitary confinement and later strung on 

barbed-wire fences where they were eaten by crows; 

(28) one witness described a torture chamber with 

blood and flesh on the walls and decaying corpses of past 


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•HRES 141 IH 

victims placed in the chamber in order to instill fear in 

the next prisoner; 

(29) psychological abuse in political prisons is pervasive, with gruesome acts, including executions, carried 

out in plain view of fellow prisoners in order to terrorize 

them; and 

(30) torture is a routine feature of life in political 

prisons, with a 2014 report by Amnesty International 

concluding that ‘‘North Korea’s prison camps are very 

possibly home to some of the most appalling torture in 

the world’’; 

Whereas officials of the Government of North Korea continually deny the existence of the labor camps; 

Whereas the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North 

Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017 found that North 

Korea’s labor camp system ‘‘has no parallel in the world 

today’’; and 

Whereas the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on 

Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of 

Korea found that the government continually commits 

crimes against humanity and will not cease, ‘‘because the 

policies, institutions, and patterns of impunity that lie at 

their root remain in place’’: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) calls upon the international community to— 

3 (A) demand the Democratic People’s Re4 public of Korea (North Korea) dismantle its 

5 labor camp system; 

6 (B) create a special tribunal with jurisdic7 tion to investigate and remedy crimes against 


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•HRES 141 IH 

1 humanity committed by the Government of 

2 North Korea; 

3 (C) issue targeted sanctions against those 

4 individuals who have committed such crimes 

5 against humanity; and 

6 (D) ban import of goods made by prisoners 

7 in the North Korean labor camp system; 

8 (2) calls on the leadership of the Government of 

9 North Korea to— 

10 (A) immediately cease human rights 

11 abuses; 

12 (B) release the roughly 80,000–120,000 

13 political prisoners; 

14 (C) halt the ongoing arrests of North Ko15 reans on political and religious grounds; 

16 (D) allow the International Committee of 

17 the Red Cross entry into the camps to assist 

18 with the release and rehabilitation of prisoners; 

19 (E) allow entry to the United Nations 

20 High Commissioner for Human Rights and the 

21 United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human 

22 Rights in North Korea to monitor the situation 

23 and assist with the rehabilitation; and 

24 (F) comply with international standards of 

25 food distribution and monitoring and allow full 


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•HRES 141 IH 

1 access to international humanitarian agencies; 

2 and 

3 (3) calls on the United States Government to— 

4 (A) continue to pursue any additional 

5 sanctions to the extent possible against those 

6 individuals responsible for the North Korean 

7 labor camp system, including individuals admin8 istering such labor camps; and 

9 (B) continue to raise awareness in the 

10 international community of the labor camps and 

11 the continuing atrocious crimes being com12 mitted in the labor camps. 

Æ 


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