IV 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 763 
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 
MARCH 5, 2018 
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 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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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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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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(11) female prisoners suspected of being impreg-
nated by non-Korean men (namely Chinese men) are sub-
jected to especially harsh treatment, with one witness de-
scribing a prisoner being injected with a labor-inducing 
drug and having to watch as a guard suffocated her new-
born 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 over-
work 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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(19) public executions by firing squads or other 
means are common, especially for prisoners caught at-
tempting to escape; 
(20) the existence of mass graves is well docu-
mented, 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, in-
mates—including teenagers—were forced to perform fif-
teen 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 po-
litical prison rolled a log down a steep mountainside, kill-
ing ten prisoners as they were carrying logs up the moun-
tain; 
(27) the bodies of some prisoners who died as a re-
sult 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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victims placed in the chamber in order to instill fear in 
the next prisoner; 
(29) psychological abuse in political prisons is perva-
sive, 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 contin-
ually 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 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) calls upon the international community to— 
(A) demand the Democratic People’s Re-
public of Korea (North Korea) dismantle its 
labor camp system; 
(B) create a special tribunal with jurisdic-
tion to investigate and remedy crimes against 
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humanity committed by the Government of 
North Korea; 
(C) issue targeted sanctions against those 
individuals who have committed such crimes 
against humanity; and 
(D) ban import of goods made by prisoners 
in the North Korean labor camp system; 
(2) calls on the leadership of the Government of 
North Korea to— 
(A) 
immediately 
cease 
human 
rights 
abuses; 
(B) release the roughly 80,000–120,000 
political prisoners; 
(C) halt the ongoing arrests of North Ko-
reans on political and religious grounds; 
(D) allow the International Committee of 
the Red Cross entry into the camps to assist 
with the release and rehabilitation of prisoners; 
(E) allow entry to the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the 
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human 
Rights in North Korea to monitor the situation 
and assist with the rehabilitation; and 
(F) comply with international standards of 
food distribution and monitoring and allow full 
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access to international humanitarian agencies; 
and 
(3) calls on the United States Government to— 
(A) continue to pursue any additional 
sanctions to the extent possible against those 
individuals responsible for the North Korean 
labor camp system, including individuals admin-
istering such labor camps; and 
(B) continue to raise awareness in the 
international community of the labor camps and 
the continuing atrocious crimes being com-
mitted in the labor camps. 
Æ 
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