11
Good Friends (2007)
•
•
Changes in North •
Korean Society and •
•
Human Rights
•
•
•
•
UN Special Rapporteur on
•
Human Rights in the
Muntarbhorn Report •
Democratic People’s Republic
•
of Korea (2008)
•
Right to food
Right to livelihood activities
Right to health care
Right to freedom of thought
Right to personal liberty
Women’s rights
Children’s rights, etc. (7 areas altogether)
Human Rights and the development process
Access to food and other necessities
Rights and freedoms
Flight and asylum
Concerns regarding vulnerable groups
Violence and human rights violations, etc. (6
areas altogether)
2) Research conducted by individual researchers
Since we cannot introduce here all the studies and research that have been carried out
by individual researchers up to now, we will analyze and review only those studies that
are relevant for the topical area of this report, i.e. the human rights situation of North
Korean women and North Korean refugee women. First of all, when compared with
research conducted by institutions and groups, the most distinctive feature of research
carried out by individual researchers consists in the latter’s far more detailed
descriptions of the analysis and their more precise composition of categories of human
rights violations.
Let us first take a look at research that inquires into issues of human rights abuses
faced by North Korean women after their escape from North Korea and throughout
their stay in a third country, particularly China.
The study by Paek Youngok (2002)9 examined the situation of North Korean refugee
women living in China and ways to support them. She analyzed, more specifically, the
reality of refugee women’s sexual exploitation and their wage exploitation in China, as
well as cases of forced repatriation to North Korea.
9
Baek, Yeongok. 2002. Research on the Situation of North Korean Refugee Women in China and
Measures to Support Them. Journal of North Korean Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1. Association of North Korean
Studies.