We are pleased to announce the release of our latest position paper, aimed at advocating for crucial amendments to the upcoming 2024 UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC) resolution for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to safeguard forcibly repatriated North Korean women from gender-based violence.

In January 2020, the DPRK instituted a border closure with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which, upon partial reopening in 2023, exposed women who had fled or been trafficked from the DPRK to PRC to heightened risks of forced repatriation and attendant human rights abuses within the DPRK's penal system. 

Despite the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on DPRK in 2014 and emerging information, including  in Korea Future’s North Korean Prison Database, the nuanced vulnerabilities of forcibly repatriated North Korean women to gender-based violence within this system—manifesting in physical, sexual, and psychological trauma—remain insufficiently acknowledged in UN HRC resolutions. 

Notably, the 2023 UN HRC resolution, while addressing the treatment of repatriated individuals, falls short of specifically recognising the gender-specific risks faced by women in DPRK penal facilities, including the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence. 

We are advocating for a pivotal amendment to the 2024 UN HRC resolution, pressing for explicit demands that the DPRK acknowledge and cease sexual and gender-based violence against detained, forcibly repatriated women, and to transparently report on the conditions faced by women as a particularly vulnerable group within its penal system.