Protecting North Korean Refugees

As the Congress continues to look at ways to best apply maximum diplomatic and financial pressure on the regime of Kim Jong-un, this hearing will explore the strategic relevance of further pressing the Chinese Government to protect North Korean refugees and evaluate the impact of surging outside information into North Korea will have. Amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we cannot forget those suffering under the North Korean regime and those North Korean refugees who are in China. North Korean asylum seekers are in imminent risk of repatriation, torture, sexual violence, forced abortions, hard labor, and even execution. China's repatriations of the North Koreans is a stark violation of both the spirit and the letter of the Refugee Convention and the 1967 protocol to which China has acceded. The Chinese Government has a lot to answer for. The U. N. Commission on Inquiry for North Korea Human Rights concluded that the Government of the People's Republic of China is aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity by forcefully repatriating North Korean refugees. As many as 90 percent of North Korean women refugees in China today fall prey to traffickers who will sell the refugees into sexual slavery or forced marriages. Labor trafficking is also pervasive. The Government of North Korea and the government and businesses in China, Russia, and elsewhere in the world profit from the trafficking of North Korean laborers.