China and North Korea Complicit in Sexual Slave trade

The governments of China and North Korea are failing to protect North Korean women trafficked to China. Instead of helping them, the women are detained, forcibly repatriated and used as forced labour, a new report from Anti-Slavery International reveals.

Rather than being rescued by the Chinese authorities, trafficked North Korea women are put in detention facilities and held in horrific conditions before being forcibly repatriated to North Korea, where they are sent to forced labor camps.

Leaving North Korea without permission can be punishable by death. Yet the Chinese Government returns refugees from North Korea, even though it is party to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which prohibits the forced return of refugees.

"These policies make the tens of thousands of North Koreans living irregularly in China particularly vulnerable to trafficking and other exploitation. The Chinese Government needs to recognise them as victims of a crime and as refugees, and accord them the protection and assistance that is their right," the report's author, Norma Muico of Anti-Slavery International, said.