North Korean women continue to face sexual violence, including sexual harassment, molestation, and rape, but penalties for sexual offenses have decreased under Kim Jong Un’s regime, according to a new report.
“Sexual violence by soldiers against civilian women in areas where North Korean troops are stationed has been consistently reported, and women sent to assault squads have been raped at construction sites,” said Joung Eun-lee, a researcher at the North Korea Research Division of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), during a press conference for the release of the 2023 North Korea Human Rights White Paper, which was hosted by KINU at the Korea Press Center on Tuesday morning.
“The recent amendments to the sexual assault laws reveal the seriousness of sexual violence in North Korea and problems related to the perception of sex,” Joung said, referring to North Korea’s criminal code on the punishment of rape.
While Article 297 of North Korea’s 2015 Criminal Code states that “a rapist shall be punished by labor correction of five years or less, and in serious cases, at least five years and not more than 10 years,” Article 319 of North Korea’s revised Criminal Code of 2022 lowers the punishment for sexual assault, stating that rapists face “labor correction of not more than four years” and “labor correction of more than four years and up to nine years in cases of serial rape or indecent assault.”
“It appears that North Korea still does not fully recognize the seriousness of violence against women, and as a result, procedures related to victim protection and prevention are not functioning properly,” Joung said.
Expansion of the death penalty
Meanwhile, conference speakers noted that the North Korean authorities are expanding the death penalty by enacting special laws that threaten North Koreans’ right to life.
“Previously, only the Criminal Code and the Criminal Code Supplement [General Crimes] stipulated the death penalty. Individual laws didn’t specify the punishments, so people were punished based on the Criminal Code,” said Lee Kyu-chang, head of the Human Rights Research Division at KINU. “Recently, special laws have been enacted that stipulate the death penalty, including the Emergency Quarantine Act, the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act, and the Drug Crime Prevention Act.”
With regards to the Emergency Quarantine Act in particular, Lee said that “the number of articles stipulating the death penalty as the maximum punishment increased from two in the 2020 version to three in the 2021 amendment,” adding: “This violates [North Koreans’] right to life because it is an excessive measure and not proportional [to the alleged crimes being committed].”
Lee further stated that “our 2023 survey collected testimonies regarding public executions for violating quarantine measures stipulated in the Emergency Quarantine Act. North Korean defectors who fled the country in 2023 testified that they witnessed public executions of people who violated quarantine measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In recent years, however, defector testimony has suggested that public executions do not take place in North Korea. “A comprehensive review of testimonies by North Korean defectors suggests that public executions have been decreasing since around 2010, but they have not disappeared,” Lee said. “[However] it’s difficult to determine whether the number of public executions has decreased, or whether public executions are now conducted in secret while the number of executions remains the same.”
Food shortages threaten North Koreans’ right to food
Lee Woo-tae, a researcher at the Global Strategy Research Division at KINU, also pointed out, based on defector testimonies from the 2023 survey, that “the Kim Jong Un regime’s Field Responsibility System (FRS), which was implemented to increase food production, has contributed to North Korea’s ongoing food shortages because it has failed to achieve results due to ineffective operations, excessive production plans that do not take into account the realities on the ground, and rampant corruption among officials.”
The FRS reduces the size of the bunjo – the smallest production unit of a collective farm – to a family unit of three to five people to increase productivity.
In short, Lee said that the failure of North Korean policies aimed at increasing food production has resulted in chronic food shortages that threaten the right to food of North Koreans.
“In the 2023 survey, some North Korean defectors testified that they never received food rations in North Korea, and some testified that the food rationing system had collapsed and was no longer relevant in North Korea, indicating a serious problem with the food distribution system,” Lee said.
He also pointed to unequal distribution as a problem, saying: “First of all, it seems that those in positions of power in society – such as party cadres, factory managers, police officers, and members of the state security apparatus – are receiving relatively good amounts of rations compared to ordinary laborers and farm workers.”
Translated by Robert Lauler.
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January 11, 2024 at 05:30AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)