Noelle Jung

5/23/2014
Symposium Outline
Human Rights in North Korea
I.Introduction:
A. joke(?)
1. Many people really dont know what North Korea is. A Korean woman married a
french guy, and whenever theres a family meeting, his husbands family asks her
how Kim Jong-Ils doing and how he manages to wear the same clothes all the
time. She got tired of explaining, so now, she doesnt even bother correcting
them anymore. She just makes up stories like, Kim Jong-Il has 50 pairs of
identical suits in his closet, and he chooses a suit he feels like wearing that day.
Also, people ask me if Im from North Korea or South Korea, this is like one of the
duh questions for Koreans. 99.999% of koreans you ever meet will be South
Koreans.
2. However, Im not making fun of anyone at all. Its completely reasonable not to
know because I, too, have no idea whats going in other parts of the world.
II. Narration:
A. Basic rights denied
1. Ex) Listening or signing to South Korean music, watching Jacki Chans movies
mean 6 months of hard labor. Punished if Kims family portriats are not
maintained well. Movement is not allowed (Cha, 2012)
2. Songbun system- its a caste system. Its divided into 3 general categories and
51 subcateogries. Peoples work, amount of food they could receive, their
spouse, and where they can live are decided by their status. Disabled people or
families with disabled people cant live in Pyeongyang. So lower class citizens
are denied everything. Women have little power. Theres very little protection
from the state about sexual abuse.(McGrath, 2014)
3. 7th(lowest) on Freedom Houses Freedom in the World index, lowest in the
Freedom of the Press index, 0% for the World Banks Voice and Accountability
index, and it was titled the Worst of the Worst. (Cha, 2012)
4. Gulag system-necessary for North Koreas repression and political control.
200,000 to 300,000 imprisoned and 1 million died.
B. government
1. The regime was created in1984 when korea was divided by the U.S. and the
Soviet Union.(Cha, 2012)
2. Held on and is still holding on to power even after many communist regimes fell.
Other dictators in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia were ousted, North Korean
leaders have no worries of being ousted.(Cha, 2012)
3. Its a totalitarian government ruled by one leader. The first leader was Kim Il-
Sung, the second was Kimg Jung Il, and currently its Kim Jung Eun. Theyre
treated like God.
4. Closed completely since the Cold War
5. They teach people that they are the chosen purest race, that Kim Il-Sung saved
them from all the evils, and that they are fortunate to be born in the most
innocent society.(Cha, 2012)
III.Division:
A. Pro food aid
1. To send a message that the world still has hope and its on their side. 78% of
500 defectors are said to have never gotten any food aid. There needs a be
another way to send food with a verification regime by WFP (Chung Min lee,
professor in Yonsei University)
2. It has bad human rights record. Starvation was planned out by the regimes
choice, not because of the pressure from outside as Jimmy Carter said. (Chung
Min Lee, Professor in Yonsei University)
B. Con food aid
1. North Korea refused food aid.
2. Food problems are deliberate.
3. 25% of its budget goes to the millitary.
4. Its going to continue unequal distribution.
5. It broke a lot of rules of U.N. Securiry Council resolutions
6. Its not showing any efforts to solve famine.
7. It threatens its donor nations.(Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast
Asia)
C.No efforts-UN Security Counci-Hands were off on human rights issues because it was
thought that the North Korean officials didnt care what the war thought.(Malinowski, 2014)
D. Things are not that bad underneath
1. CNN portrait- We dont know North Korea that much but its pretty OK
underneath. There are nicely dressed elites playing on their phones at an
amusement park.(Cha, 2012)
2. International reporters interpreted kids and adults using cellphones as North
Korea wiling to change. Meaning North Korea is trying open its system(Cha,
2012)
E. Solution
1. Make sure the government distributes food to the people that need it the most.
2. UN does something like throwing out the government.
IV.Proof: The world isnt aware of whats happening in the small poor nation other than its
threatening world peace with nuclear weapons. The government is against its own people and
abuse human rights. The story has to be spread and the UN must do something about it.
A.Prison Camps
1. Children and others have to participate in stoning prisoners to death(Cha, 2012)
2. Put prisoners upside down and drown them. Pierce under fingernails with
needles. Pour red pepper paste down their nose, lock them in small metal cages,
starve them to death(a prisoner turn fronm 165Ib to 75Ib) Children start to work
at the age of 5. Authorities deny existence of camps. Ordinary prison camps are
no different from political camps. Political prisoners are given no contact with the
outside world of the camp. They will die there.(Mcgrath, 2014)
3. 5 camps now. 5,000 to 50,000 in each. No trials given, just captured then
tortured until they confess to whatever they were accused of (Cha, 2012)
4. Slave labor- extremely dangerous. Unbelievably high death rates from working
and many amputees, cripples, hunchbacks, etc from working. wake up between
4 and 6 am. Strong prisoners(men and young female) jobs: mining, logging,
brick-making. No safety rules. Weaker ones jobs- sewing, making belts, etc.
Nonstop working for 12-14hours. Punishment- physical abuse and torture, cut
starving ration. No breakfast or lunch.(Cha, 2012)
5. Food-leftovers, which are basically nothing. If lucky, forced to eat bugs, bettles,
snakes, rats, grasses, barks to surive. Pick out beans out of an oxens poop, and
get punished if caught. Compete to get the clothes of dead bodies.(Cha, 2012)
6. Extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced
abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious racial and
gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance
of persons and the inhuman act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.
(investigators, United Nations Human Rights Council)
7. Only six decades after the utilization of gas chambers to exterminate European
Jewry, North korea has apparently employed them againt thousands of its own
citiznes. Pleaded the UN to take action on North Koreas activities against its
people. (Yad Vashem, World Center for Holocaust Research, Education,
Documentation, and Commemoration)
8. Camps continue to grow. Former camp guards said prisoners are experimented
with chemical and biological weapons.(Cha, 2014)
9. A woman gave birth to a baby in the condition thats almost impossible to even
survive. The security guard heard the baby cry, and beat the woman as a
punishment. She begged him to let her baby live, but she was forced to drown
the baby in the water with her own hands.(CNN,2014)
10. Jee Heon As time in a prison- She had a friend who was like her sister. While
working, they found grass that could be eaten since prison ration wasnt enough.
The guard saw them picking up the grass, and ran to them and stepped on their
hands. Then he forced them to eat soil along with roots and grass. Her fried died
of diarrhea with her eyes open. She buried her body with 20 other bodies. One
day the bodies were gone. Later she found out an old security guard let his dogs
eat the bodies.(CNN,2014)
B.Defectors
1. Get sent to prison camps.
2. Most escape due to economic difficulties not of political disagreements. 75% say
still have good feelings toward North Korea
3. Foreign travel was never permitted even though millions died from starvation.
Only extremely high class with clean records can.
4. Ex: A family who tried to escape got caught. Then rings were pierced through
their noses like cows, and rocks were thrown at them while being dragged
through their hometown.
5. Theyre starved, tortured, and interrogated
6. If a pregnant women is caught from trying to escape, theres a guaranteed
chance that shell go through forced abortion or infanticides. Women go through
sexual abuse like vaginal searches in camps.1-6(McGrath, 2014)
7. China deports any defectors back to North Korea(myself).
C.Systematic famine
1. Public executions were the highest between 1996 and 1998. Families friends
even children were forced to watch
2. Reason-theft, killing livestock for food, defection, etc.
3. Method-hanging, shooting, garration by chain, wire, or rope. Burning alive and
relatives are forced to light the fire.(Cha, 2012)
4. The government doesnt try to help its people. 7 year old boy is shorter in 8in and
lighter in 22Ib than a boy in South Korea. Food aids are hard to have access. Its
very discriminatory. (Cha, 2012)
5. malnutrition 2003-39% of children 2004 South Hamgyong 47% Ryanggang 46%
Pyeongyang 26% UNICEF 2003-2008 under 5 45% stunted. 2009 WFP 37%
under 5 malnourished 33%(Cha, 2012) 30.9% malnourished in2011-
2013(McGrath, 2014)
6. 3.5 million people died. Most of 1,600 refugees interviewd by Stephen Haggard
and Marans Noland said had no idea of international humanitarian food aid.
Natural disaster and poverty had little do with it.(Harvard International Review,
2011)
7. North Korea has the worlds largest per capita army and highest military GDP.
Theyre not poor. It makes billions in export with mineral resources. But uses it
completely on elites and nuclear technology development.(Vitit Muntarbhorn,
former special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea)
8. 4 million died from starvation and 6 million are almost on the brink of death.
Highest-ranking defector said that aids didnt reach average people. It wa a
genocial system. (Harvard international Review, 2011)
D. Basic rights
1. Theres almost no freedom of movement. You need government permission to
move. You cant travel outside at all. Anyone attempting escape can be killed by
soldiers.
2. Former military captain said deadly biological and chemical experiments are
taken place on physically or mentally disabled children. (Cha, 2014)
3. Former physician confirmed the former military captains statement and told that
disabled newborns are killed as soon as the come out. (Cha, 2014)
4. Required to put up pictures of the Kim family(Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, and Kimg
Jong-Eun.) you can go to jail if theyre not maintained well(McGrath, 2014)
5. NO freedom allowed(opinion, expression, religion, information) People are given
constant reminders of how great the Kim family is. Confession meetings for
children are held every week. (McGrath, 2014)
V.Refutation:
A.The officals care
1. The chief leader ordered soldiers to kill all the prisoners if war or revolution
breaks out. This means that theyre ashamed and do care about what the world
thinks.
2. Its an opportunity to reveal it.(Malinowski, 2014)
B.Things are actually pretty horrible
1. The we-dont-know-North Korea-that-much part was true, but its-pretty-OK-
underneath-the-curtain part was completely false.(Cha, 2012)
2. People living in Pyeongyang are all from the upper class, so the kids at the
amusement park were elites of elites. The video didnt show what its like in the
rural areas.
3. Public executions tripled.
4. Ban of Chineses model phones, because it gives service outside North Korea
5. Using foreign currency is equivalent to death
6. 3/90,000 own cars 10/100 own refrigerators. 3-6(Cha, 2012)
VI.Conclusion
A. North Korea is abusing human rights in every possible way you can think of.
B.
1. Its really sad to hear about people like my friends, parents, siblings,
grandparents, are going through all the hardships . Somethings has to be done
before another million die.
2. The government is corrupted to the core. While people are starving to death with
bones and skin barely hanging on, the authorities have never heard of the word
starvation among them and have never had to go through the hardships that has
been and is a rite of passage to every lower class. Something has to be done.
3. This has been going on since the Cold War, but nothing was done to save the
people. North Korea doesnt have any oil and China got its back, so theres
nothing the world can benefit from starting a war and ousting the government.
But someone must help them, its time.