Obama is pressed to raise NK refugee issue with Hu (Photo Courtesy of White House/Pete Souza)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA – Human Rights groups, including The North Korean Freedom Coalition (NKFC), are urging President Barack Obama to press China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees captured in China. President Hu Jintao of China met with President Obama on Wednesday and this has created a lot of hype amongst the media and public.

While most of discussion between two leaders is expected to revolve around setting a new course in economic cooperation and political reconciliation, human rights groups point to North Korean refugees over whom China has tremendous power and control.

“We urgently request that during your meetings . . . with President Hu Jintao… that you request China to end its current policy of repatriating North Korean refugees back to North Korea,” Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, said in an open letter to Obama. “We believe that ending this policy of repatriation would have a very positive effect for China and North Korea.”

However, it is unclear, thus far, how much of concern has been expressed by President Obama on North Korean refugees. His primary agenda regarding North Korea is the North’s recent development of its nuclear weapons programs and its latest provocation against South Korea.

China has failed to join the international community in condemning North Korea on two series of attacks it carried against South Korea last year; sinking of the naval ship, Cheonan, in March, which took the lives of 46 marines, and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November, killing two civilians and two soldiers.

It is estimated that up to 400,000 North Korean refugees are hiding in China trying to find their way to another country, mostly South Korea. China, however, in violation of the 1951 U.N. Convention that requires countries to grant asylum to foreign refugees, and under a secret agreement with North Korea, treats defectors as economic immigrants rather than refugees, and repatriate them when caught in their soil.

Those repatriated to the North are subject to “a minimum of five years of labor correction” or “indefinite terms of imprisonment and forced labor, confiscation of property or death,” according to a U.S. State Department report released last year. According to Scholte, many female refugees are subject to becoming victims of human trafficking and sold as sexual slaves among chinese men.

“It is China’s repatriation policy that has created an environment in China that has led to human beings being bought and sold, as over 80 percent of North Korean females are trafficked . . . These women are our mothers, or sisters, and our daughters who are being bought and sold like animals just because they went to China to try to feed their starving children and families in North Korea,” said Scholte.


South Korea has taken in more the 20,000 North Koreans since the end of the Korean War (1950-53), while the United States have been accepting about 100 North Korean refugees under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004.


For more information, please see:

Yonhap News – Obama urged to ask Hu to stop repatriating N. Korean refugees: rights group – 12 January 2011

The Korea Times – Obama pressed to raise NK refugee plight with Hu – 12 January 2011

The New York Times – U.S. Warning to China Sends Ripples to the Koreas – 20 January 2011