IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 115 
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 8, 2019 
Mr. CONAWAY submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Demo-
cratic 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 sur-
vivor accounts, and now-publicly available satellite tech-
nology; 
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 115 IH 
Whereas the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North 
Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017 states that ‘‘hun-
dreds 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 forc-
ibly 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 Hu-
manity in North Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017, 
the Government of North Korea regularly and routinely 
commits crimes against humanity, including murder, ex-
termination, enslavement, forcible transfer, imprison-
ment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced dis-
appearances, and other inhumane acts; 
Whereas, according to the best available evidence, some spe-
cific 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 115 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 stom-
ach; 
(5) another witness lost consciousness after enduring 
a beating designed to trigger premature labor, with pris-
on officials killing her baby before she could regain con-
sciousness; 
(6) rape victims who feared being killed after becom-
ing pregnant engaged in self-induced abortions by eating 
dirt and poisoning themselves with flower roots; 
(7) other rape victims self-induced abortions by in-
serting a rubber tube in their vaginas; 
(8) rape of teenage girls and their subsequent at-
tempts to commit suicide by jumping in the Daedong-
gang River were so common that prison guards were de-
ployed to the river to thwart them; 
(9) four pregnant women were executed for pro-
testing the fact guards forced them to run down a moun-
tain 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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