29 III. Contents and methods of research 1. Contents and scope of this study 1) Structural characteristics of human rights violations by spaces of North Korean refugee women’s stay and settlement The fundamental goal of this fact-finding study report is to scrutinise the reality of human rights abuses against North Korean refugee women based on a differentiation between spaces. The main contents of this report involve the systematic examination of (1) North Korean women’s perception of their status and rights in North Korea and their situation concerning violations, (2) North Korean refugee women’s understanding of rights and their situation with regard to violations in China and other third countries where they take up temporary settlement after escaping from North Korea, (3) North Korean refugee women’s understanding of rights during their resettlement process in South Korea and their situation concerning infringements of rights. Our examination pays attention to the specificities of the political, economic, and socio-cultural structures in which human rights situations encountered by North Korean women and North Korean refugee women within the respective spaces are embedded; this will allow us to understand modes of human rights violations as they emerge and as they adopt specific patterns throughout women’s continued flight from North Korea. 2) Case study on human rights violations against North Korean refugee women during the flight and resettlement process As key contents of the case study, we looked into (1) women’s perceptions of human rights in North Korea as well as their situation with regard to civil and political rights, social and economic rights, sexual discrimination concerning livelihood activities etc., sexual harassment and sexual violence, measures to protect motherhood, and cases of systems and institutions which facilitate human rights violations etc. Furthermore, we