Mandatory participation in mass gatherings on holidays and training sessions for such events sometimes interfered with vacations or rest from work. Workers often had to “celebrate” at least part of the holiday with their work units and could only spend a full day with their families if the vacation lasted two days. Wage deficits were commonplace, which reportedly prompted some workers to seek income-generating activities in the informal or underground economy. Nutrition, hygiene and medical conditions in prison camps have been catastrophic, according to KINU`s 2019 white paper. There were no statistics on deaths in custody, but defectors reported that deaths from summary executions, torture, lack of medical care, and starvation were commonplace. The 2014 report of the UN Commission of Inquiry (UNCOI) documented an “extremely high rate of deaths in custody” due to starvation and neglect, laborious forced labor, disease and executions. Reports of defections documented cases in which the government executed political prisoners, government opponents, forcibly returned asylum seekers, government officials, and others accused of crimes. The law provides for the death penalty upon conviction for the “most serious cases of `subversive` or `anti-national` crimes. These terms are interpreted broadly and include: participation in a coup d`état or conspiracy to overthrow the state; terrorist acts committed for purposes hostile to the State; treason, including defection or handing over state secrets; provide information on economic, social and political developments that are regularly published elsewhere; and “treacherous destruction”. In addition, the law allows the death penalty for less serious crimes such as theft, destruction of military installations and national property, distribution of narcotics, counterfeiting, fraud, kidnapping, distribution of pornography, and trafficking in human beings. Defectors and the media also reported that the government practiced infanticide or required mothers to commit infanticide if they were political prisoners, disabled, raped by officials or prison guards, or forcibly repatriated from the People`s Republic of China.
The government appeared to monitor correspondence, phone calls, emails, text messages and other digital communications. private telephone lines operated by a system that prevented international calls from being made or received; International telephone lines were only available in limited circumstances. Participation of women and members of minority groups: Although the law grants women equal active and political rights, few women have been elected or appointed to high-level government positions. In 2016, women accounted for about 3.1 percent of WPK Central Committee members and 2.8 percent of candidates and held only a few key positions within the WPK. In August, the media reported on the appointment of a woman, Pak Myong Sun, to the Politburo of the WPK Central Committee, the party`s highest body, and head of a department of the WPK Central Committee. With her appointment, the country had only two women in the 31-member Politburo, the other being Kim Jong Un`s sister, Kim Yo Jong. Of the approximately 20 Party departments and offices, only one was headed by a woman. The 2014 UNCOI report showed that only 10% of central government officials were women. There is no legal minimum wage in the country.
No reliable data were available on the minimum wage paid by state-owned enterprises. Salaries are sometimes paid, at least in part, in kind and not in cash. Persons with disabilities have also faced discrimination in the workplace. Most of the approximately 1,200 workshops or light factories for disabled persons built in the 1950s are no longer in operation; There were few inclusive jobs. While the total number of political prisoners and prisoners remained unknown, KINU`s 2019 white paper stated that the state had detained between 80,000 and 120,000 people in Kwanliso`s political prison labor camps. Incarceration in a Kwanliso is in most cases a life sentence and, in many cases, involves three generations of the prisoner`s family. NGOs and the media reported that political prisoners were subject to harsher sentences and less protection than other prisoners and prisoners. The government considered dissidents to be political criminals. Reports from previous years have described political crimes such as attempted defection in South Korea or contact with family members who had defected to South Korea, on newspapers bearing the likeness of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, mentioning Kim Il Sung`s limited formal education or degrading photos of the Kims. The 2014 UNCOI report noted that many “ordinary” prisoners were in fact political prisoners “held without material reason consistent with international law.” “LEE”: [through interpreter] My father died when I was 3 years old. And then my mother left the house and didn`t come back. I was very hungry.
I was almost always hungry when I was young. There were times when I ate one meal a day. But when I starved, I didn`t eat for two days. Because I was hungry, I stole and took bags. That`s how I lived until I was 14. There were many others. And there were children starving. In addition to children in detention centers, the number of children living in orphanages and other institutions increased dramatically after the famines of the 1990s. In 2019, HRNK reported that Kim Jong Un had ordered the modernization of 40 child protection facilities, including orphanages, elementary schools and intermediate academies, to accommodate these children.
HRNK interviews with those who had lived in these facilities reported substandard conditions, including lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter. As a result, many were malnourished and in poor physical condition. When living in orphanages, children often received only one meal a day, forcing them to struggle to feed themselves or flee the orphanage to survive. Children living in orphanages are often subjected to forced labour instead of going to school. Several respondents described how children were forced to do “simple work” such as carrying stones instead of being cared for and protected in orphanages. There were no restrictions on the government`s ability to detain and detain people at will, or to detain them out of contact with the outside world. Family members and others concerned were reportedly virtually unable to obtain information about the allegations against the detainees or the length of their sentences. According to the defectors` reports, the families were not informed of the arrest, detention or conviction. There has been no judicial review or appeal against detention, either in law or in practice. According to a 2015 statement by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, family members have no recourse to the release of prisoners accused of political crimes, as the state could view such advocacy on behalf of political prisoners as treason against the state and lead to the imprisonment of family members. There was no information on detainees` access to a lawyer. Many potential refugees who have returned involuntarily from foreign countries have been imprisoned in harsh conditions.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported several forcibly repatriated refugees alleging that the authorities treated particularly harshly those who had intensive contact with foreigners or religious groups or who had spent time in South Korea, including those whose family members had been resettled in South Korea. The government continued its efforts to limit foreign influence on its citizens. People accused of watching or possessing foreign films have reportedly been arrested and possibly executed. According to KINU`s 2019 white paper, defectors reported varying sentences for consuming South Korean media between three and 10 years in prison, as well as proclamations that those arrested would be sentenced to death. According to KINU`s 2019 white paper, the number of people executed for watching or distributing South Korean video content has increased in recent years, with additional reports of penalties for criminal labor. In December 2019, HRNK reported the introduction of a file watermark system on Android smartphones and PCs that adds a user- or device-specific string of data to the end of a media file`s filename whenever it is shared. The Constitution provides that the courts are independent and must conduct judicial proceedings in strict accordance with the law. However, there is no independent judiciary. According to KINU`s 2019 white paper, many cases of corruption have been reported during preliminary investigations or investigations and in detention centers, as well as by judges and prosecutors at the trial stage.
