Will the Serious Human Rights Violations Against North Korean Women in China Ever End?

Choi Cheong-ha

North Korean Defector

Chairman of the Folklore Conservation Association for North Hamgyong Province

Activists hold a rally in central Seoul to urge China to stop repatriating North Korean defectors back to the North in this July 2022 photo. Korea Times file

Korean women traditionally dedicated their lives to caring for their families, and it is heartbreaking that these innocent women had to endure degradation and shame throughout history. The plight of the 500,000 women taken to Qing China after King Injo's surrender during the 1636 Qing invasion of Joseon illustrates just how miserable their lives were.

These women became mere pawns for Qing China, sacrificed by incompetent kings and rulers who were more concerned with flattery and subservience than the welfare of their people. In a strange and hostile land, these women risked their lives to escape and return to their country, only to be labeled "Hwanhyangneo" (returned women). They lived in shame, with many ending their lives in suicide—a truly tragic history.

Although these women have faded into history, the derogatory nickname "hwanyangnyeon"—with 'nyeon' being a term used to demean women—remains. Even now, there are no attempts to reexamine their suffering. The anguished cries of the comfort women, forced into sexual slavery during the Japanese colonial period, continue to echo today.

The incompetent submission of those in power, who believed "a bad peace is better than a small war," led many women to long for their homes and families until their deaths. Only those who barely survived tried to address their painful past, but this is often dismissed as a mere excuse for a weak nation.

We thought the painful history of our women had ended there. Who could have imagined that such events would still occur in modern times?

Escaping the oppressive rule of the Kim family—Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un—36,000 North Korean defectors have sought freedom and entered South Korea.

After being halted by COVID-19 for three years, the flow of North Korean defectors has resumed, and the number entering South Korea has increased again. This movement of North Koreans seeking freedom will continue.

However, the path to freedom is not easy. While many aim for South Korea, the number of North Korean defectors wandering through third countries is much higher than those who have reached South Korea. More than half of these defectors are women who fall into the hands of human traffickers, are sold from place to place, and face forced prostitution and humiliation.

A woman in her twenties, sold in Tumen, China, to Horqin Right Front Banner in Inner Mongolia, was alternately raped by three elderly Chinese widowed brothers. She miraculously escaped to South Korea, where she now lives reclusively and receives psychological treatment. The number of North Korean defector women facing hardships in third countries is hard to estimate, yet nobody speaks about this issue. It is a sad reality that those claiming to be human rights activists for North Korean defectors roam endlessly across China and other countries with donations and offerings, yet fail to solve the problem.

When a university professor in South Korea writes an absurd paper claiming that "reunification should absolutely not occur at this time and that South and North Korea are not brother countries," the world barely takes notice. If this is the rhetoric of an academic, one wonders how the tens of millions of separated families in South Korea can be explained. The existence of such viewpoints in South Korea, along with the Kim Jong-un regime, means that these precious women are desperately hoping for salvation on the brink of life and death, yet no benevolent hand is extended.

I want to ask everyone who cries for human rights: What will you do about the North Korean defector women being violated in third countries? Will they eventually just be labeled as "hwanyangnyeon" after many years?

I appeal to all peace-loving, kind-hearted people: Please extend a helping hand, give these precious women a chance to bloom again.