Inside China’s lawless ‘RED ZONE’ as up to 500k women face sex slavery & forced pregnancy in real Handmaid’s Tale
SEX trafficking gangs are snatching North Korean girls as young as 12 in China's lawless "red zone", human rights organisation revealed today.
Hundreds of thousands of North Korean girls face systematic rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriage in the provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin.
Many who try to flee Kim Jong-un's iron-fist grip are trafficked and sold on the road to freedom - but for those who end up in China, their fate can be even more bleak.
According to the new report from Global Rights Compliance, sex trafficking gangs prey on the hundreds of thousands of women and girls fleeing from the atrocities of the North Korean regime.
Once in China's so-called brutal "red zone", they are subjected to rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, pregnancy, forced labour and cybersex trafficking.
The human rights firm compared the abhorrent scenes to Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale - where women are brutally controlled, dominated and sexually abused.
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Sofia Evangelou, North Korea lead legal advisor at Global Rights Compliance, told The Sun Online that desperate North Korean women "take any opportunity to flee in any way that they can".
And she said they often know they will end up being exploited by depraved trafficking rings and sold into the sex trade.
"We are appalled to hear that many North Korean women prefer to be sexually exploited rather than remain in North Korea," she said.
"But that captures their desperation.
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"With the knowledge that this might happen, they prefer to be sold to brokers or trafficking rings rather than staying in North Korea.
"Sometimes they willingly accept the help of a broker. Some of them know they might end up being exploited by trafficking rings, but they are so desperate they choose to trust the brokers.
"They are hoping they might end up having a better life."
North Korean women are more likely to cross the border in search of better prospects for their families as North Korean men are given state-assigned jobs - meaning they are closely tracked.
But sick organised criminal groups in China work with brokers on the ground in North Korea to exploit the vulnerable women.
And horrifying new untold witness accounts detail how they face violent beatings and forced abortions at the hands of the ruthless gangs operating in China.
Terrified women are paraded and beaten in the streets in front of crowds of men - and have been sold for as little as a few hundreds dollars, the human rights firm said.
Survivors said Chinese guards know of the operations of organised criminals and essentially do nothing about it
Sofia Evangelou
One survivor told how she was marched through villages in northern China for three days before her broker found a man who paid less than $3,000.
Another North Korean woman said she was sold to a Chinese man in Yanbian, who repeatedly beat her.
"We lived together for one year and we couldn't have a child, so he beat me," she said.
"He kicked me. He kicked my head a lot. I have depression now as the aftermath."
It's estimated 70 to 80 per cent of female North Korean refugees in China are trafficked into the sex trade - an industry worth $105million.
In 2019, a report by Korea Future Initiative found the vast majority of victims are women and girls between the ages of 12 and 29.
The Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights has documented more than 82,000 cases of horrific human rights violations.
China's historic one-child policy has fuelled the multibillion dollar sex slave industry by creating a massive gender imbalance in the country and making it difficult for Chinese men to marry.
"Essentially, North Korean women and girls are a perfect way to find wives for Chinese men," Evangelou said.
Global Rights Compliance said the women are often sold to "very lonely men" and kept against their will in the home they sold into.
Sick organised criminal groups in China work with brokers on the ground across the border in North Korea to exploit the fleeing women and girls.
BRIBES FOR BORDER GUARDS
And Chinese guards are reportedly complicit in the horror crimes.
Evangelou said: "Survivors said Chinese guards either know of the operations of organised criminals and essentially do nothing about it, or there have been instances where they have facilitated the groups of criminal groups in various ways.
"They could potentially be receiving bribes or facilitating movement of groups so they can operate across the region and exploit the women."
According to Global Rights Compliance, Chinese officials rarely carry out inspections in the "red zone";.
And they said the complicity of Chinese officials, and sometimes even the police force, makes it nearly impossible to hold criminals to account.
Evangelou said: “A black hole of information currently exists around China’s red zone which means that many more North Korean women and girls are falling victims to China’s sex slave industry.
"The current situation leaves North Korean women and girls exposed to the stark reality of either being sold into a lifetime of sexual and mental abuse, slavery, forced labour, or reaching freedom.
“The pandemic of international silence around the human rights atrocities against North Korean women and girls must end.
"The illegal sexual slavery of women and girls will not stop until aconcerted international effort is mobilised.
"The international community can no longer turn a blind eye to the atrocities being committed against women and children, fleeing for their lives and – in too many cases – those of their unborn children."
Woman and girls hiding in the "red zone" live in constant fear of being sent back to North Korea - as financial incentives are high for locals to report defectors.
Defectors who are forced back are branded "traitors" and face strip searches during interrogations, time behind bars, or forced labour camps.
And some defectors are issued an automatic death sentence.
Many North Korean women prefer to be sexually exploited rather than remain in North Korea
Sofia Evangelou
One woman, whose identity has been protected, was sent to a police holding camp after she was returned to North Korea - where she was brutally raped by a security officer.
She said she was ordered to follow the officer to a kitchen before he told her to take her clothes off and sexually assaulted her.
The woman said she was left feeling "ashamed".
In another case, a pregnant woman was taken back to North Korea and hid her pregnancy from prison guards at a forced labour camp.
Tragically, she and her unborn baby drowned after a guard ordered her to go into a river to collect stones.
According to the , up to 120,000 people are currently in prison camps in North Korea, where they are subjected to forced labour for long hours under harsh conditions.
China treats North Koreans as illegally economic migrants - essentially pushing criminal gangs to operate without any implications.
It means North Korean women can't reach out to the authorities for help as they know they will forcibly repatriated - leaving them in "hiding" in China.
"This leaves women open to a plethora of grave human rights violations because this is there hostile policy from China which prevents women seeking refuge," Evangelou said.
If they do manage to escape, they will follow go to South East Asia and try to get to the safe haven of South Korea, she said.
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As the UN Human Rights Council met this week, the Special Rapporteur said women and girls in North Korea are a top priority.
Global Rights Compliance worked with North Korean civil society organisations to compile the evidence of the horror human rights violations.
