07/28/2003

The trafficking of North Korean women is common along the Chinese-North Korean border.  Some women are so desperate to leave North Korea that they knowingly take the risk of being sold into marriage with Chinese men.  Others reportedly end up in Karaoke bars or brothels.  

A 28-year-old woman came to China in 1999 with her cousin and two friends.  All four of them were caught by a gang of 3-4 Chinese businessmen at the border and sold to buyers in southern China.  She was assigned to a Chinese man and stayed with him for two hours until he left for work.  Although he had locked the door, she was able to escape and flee from the countryside.  She walked all night to the city.  Although she does not speak Chinese, she knew how to write the name of the former President of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, in Chinese.  A Chinese man understood that she was North Korean and arranged for her to get a ticket to Jilin province, the area of China where the majority of North Koreans live in hiding.  She has been with a Korean-Chinese man for three years now.  She does not know what happened to her two friends who were trafficked.  Her cousin managed to escape the man to whom she was sold, but was then caught by the Chinese police and deported to North Korea.  

There appear to be two kinds of trafficking of North Korean women.  One kind is the kidnapping of North Korean women by Chinese or North Korean men along the border who prey on unaccompanied women.  The other kind of trafficking is one in which Chinese men pay for North Korean brides and the women willingly marry because they have no recourse but to rely on Chinese men for survival.  These partnerships provide a means of hiding from Chinese authorities as well as providing the women with food, shelter, and security.  One possible explanation for this is the lack of Chinese brides.  Because of the Chinese government’s one-child policy, and the choice by many families to have a son rather than a daughter, there is now a shortage of marriageable women.  North Korean brides alleviate that problem whether they do so by choice, coercion or force.  

“In the back of my mind I knew I was going to be sold,” explained a 30-year-old North Korean woman who crossed into China in 2001 with an unknown man she met at the border.  She told Refugees International, “There are North Korean men who look for women along the border and sell them.  The Chinese client pays.”  She escaped the first night and fled to Jilin province.  
 
Crying and shaking, a 37-year-old woman who came to China four years ago explained how she was trafficked in April 2003.  She came to China to find work with the intention of sending money to her two young sons she left in North Korea.  She worked for three months in a quarry but was paid nothing except room and board.  In February 2003 she met a Korean-Chinese who told her she would have a good job in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.  She went with him and after about a month, she overheard the man whispering to someone about how they might sell her.  She pretended to go to the washroom and then fled to the railway station where she met a Korean-Chinese man who helped her get a ticket to Jilin province.  

Because North Koreans in China are granted no rights or protection, for most North Korean women being sold to a Chinese man is safer than living in China alone.  This attests to the abject vulnerability of these women.  The Chinese Government considers them to be illegal immigrants.  North Koreans cannot work and they live in fear of being deported back to North Korea where they face imprisonment and perhaps torture and death for having left their country.  One missionary explained that the Chinese police would typically not deport North Koreans who have families.  However, being married to a Chinese man in no way ensures that a woman will not be deported.  When the call from Beijing comes to round up North Koreans, local authorities have a quota to fill and all North Koreans are vulnerable.  

The system of bride trafficking appears to pervade villages in Jilin province.  In one village, a North Korean woman said she knows of 15 other North Korean women living nearby with their Chinese husbands.  Out of these 15, seven or eight of them were trafficked.  Most of them now have children with their Chinese husbands.  Since the Chinese Government will not give legal residency to the North Korean wives of Chinese men, this has engendered another social problem: lack of legal rights for their children.  A growing number of children in Jilin province are stateless and have no access to formal education.  

Another North Korean woman, age 43, came to China with her family in 1997.  Her first daughter disappeared in 1997 and they later heard that she was kidnapped and sold.  Her two other daughters were married to Chinese men.  When this woman’s husband died two years ago, she was sold to a poor old man.  She was unhappy there because she did not speak Chinese and her husband did not speak Korean.  Furthermore, her husband did not like her son from her previous marriage.  She saved money every time he gave her grocery money so that she and her son could eventually leave him.  She is now married again and living in Jilin province.    
    
Another woman came in 1999 at the age of 22 and was ingeniously able to avoid being trafficked.  She heard that there is enough to eat in China so she asked her cousin to take her there, although he could not stay with her.  “For a single male, it’s hard to live in China because a North Korean man never marries a Korean-Chinese woman,” she explained.  She told RI that she was fearful of China because “There is a rumor that Chinese treat North Korean women like slaves or abuse them.  I was afraid of businessmen that take women from North Korea.”  So, she crossed the border dressed as a man and stayed with people her cousin knew.  She hid in a room for two days and asked the owner to marry her to a nice peasant man because she did not want to be sold.  She is now happily married and has a one-month-old daughter.  She remarked, “Some people here treat me like someone from a lower class because they think North Korea is poor, but it’s good living here.  I’m happy here.  If North Korea opens up in the future and one can make money, then I’ll go there with my husband.”  

It is difficult to know how widespread the trafficking of North Korean women is, especially given the limited access to North Koreans.  Based on the testimonies of these women who described the trafficking networks, and reports from several aid workers that trafficking is a serious problem along the border, Refugees International recommends that:

• The Government of China take steps to reduce the kidnapping of North Korean women.
• The Government of China immediately halt all deportations of North Koreans in China, except for those who commit criminal acts.
• The Government of China grant legal residency to the spouses of Chinese citizens and their children.
• The Government of China allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees unimpeded access to North Koreans in China.
• The Government of China meet their obligations under the Refugee Convention and grant refugee or other humanitarian status to North Koreans in China.
• The United States Government press the Chinese Government to adopt these steps for the protection of North Koreans in China in the context of its on-going human rights dialogue with Beijing.