Skip to main content

North Korea: Human Trafficking

Question for Foreign and Commonwealth Office

UIN HL15869, tabled on 21 May 2019

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Korea Future Initiative Sex Slaves: The Prostitution, Cybersex, and Forced Marriage of North Korean Women and Girls in China, published and presented to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea on 20 May which details the trafficking, abuse, forced marriage and enslavement of North Korean women by Chinese trafficking gangs; and whether they intend to raise the contents of that report with the governments of the People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Answered on

4 June 2019

We are grateful to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for North Korea for its ongoing work to highlight the grave human rights situation in North Korea. The Korea Future Initiative’s new report presents a stark and worsening picture of the plight of North Korean women and girls in China. We are deeply concerned at its accounts of women and girls being trafficked from North Korea to China for prostitution and forced marriage, and the misery and suffering they endure.

We will continue to raise with China our concerns over the repatriation of North Korean refugees, which we believe puts them at serious risk of exploitation. We continue to emphasise to China that those fleeing North Korea should be treated as legitimate asylum claimants. The UK is at the forefront of raising global awareness of modern slavery and sexual violence. As such, we will consider the best way to address the issues in the report including raising these with the appropriate Chinese and North Korean authorities.

Answered by

Foreign and Commonwealth Office