North Korea testifies on women's treaty

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 20, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has begun drafting its response to testimony of a North Korean delegation denying discrimination.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea delegation gave the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women panel its first periodic report Monday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York and answered questions regarding North Korean compliance with the treaty.

The Pyongyang delegation touted North Korea's 1946 Gender Equality Law, which it claimed satisfies many of the terms of the CEDAW convention.

However, Ho Bom, chairman of the DPRK national coordination committee for the implementation of CEDAW, said ongoing discrimination against women was the result of cultural attitudes inculcated into the population after 2,000 years under the "feudal yoke" of Japanese colonial rule.

The CEDAW committee agreed cultural mores exacerbated inequality, but also questioned structural discrimination exposing women to additional hardships in the ongoing food crisis. Amnesty International estimates that hundreds of thousands of North Korean citizens have died in the famine that has lasted more than a decade.

Joanna Hosaniak, management and planning coordinator for Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, said the government uses food as a political tool, rewarding the military and high-ranking government officials and controlling the rural poor.

In the 1960s and '70s, North Korea reorganized its citizens into a social hierarchy. Those loyal to Kim Il Sung were placed at the top and allowed to live in the capital Pyongyang where, the Citizen's Alliance said, there is very little hunger.

The top class now receives a daily ration of fruits, vegetables, meats and cigarettes. Former landowners, those with ties or political sympathy for Japan or the United States and disabled people were placed in the bottom class, relocated to northern rural areas and now receive a ration of rice every 15 days.

Natural disasters and economic instability has left most North Koreans dependent on the state for food. The DPRK delegation said the nation could produce 4.3 billion tons of food, which was 900,000 tons short of need. Additionally, during times of shortage, distribution to the rural areas faltered first.

Women who did not work outside the home were entitled to 400 grams of rice per day.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 400 grams of rice yields approximately 520 calories per day, out of the recommended 2,100 calories per day intake.

The delegation said, "The amount of rationing for women might not be sufficient, but in view of the whole family, some men get 700 grams per day and some children get 600 grams per day, the general amount of the family will be sufficient and if women work, they get additional rations."

Hosaniak said, "They admit that household women only receive 400 grams of food and explain that many of them have children, so in fact, the total amount the household receives is bigger. So what does that mean? The mother has to take food from the child in order not to starve?"

Additionally, Ho admitted that women might be subject to job discrimination. Jobs are handed out by regional employment authorities and are based on the same social hierarchy as rations. The available data on women's employment was not comprehensive.

Military needs took priority over food security said the North Korean delegation, though reassuring the committee that the nation was mobilized to assist farmers.

"We are at a cease-fire, the war is not over. We need to arm ourselves against the possible unleashing of war," said Ho.

Lack of food security has forced a disproportionate number of women to flee as refugees into China and South Korea.

According to Citizen's Alliance, 70 percent of North Korean refugees in South Korea and 90 percent of refugees in China are women. Citizen's Alliance further estimates that 90 percent of women are sexually exploited, sold as wives to Chinese men or trafficked into sexual slavery. The demand for nubile women has increased in response to the Chinese policy allowing only one child per family and a cultural predilection for male children.

Hosaniak said the most desired North Korean women are between the ages of 20 and 30, for whom traffickers receive between $450-$1,200.

"However," Hosaniak said, "recently it has been observed that much younger, hungry girls, some as young as 12, are sexually exploited in return for food."

The North Korean Criminal Code classified border crossing without government permit as treason, for which refugees have received penalties ranging from at least five years of labor rehabilitation to the death penalty.

DPRK delegates said the government no longer punished citizens who fled economic hardship. Although, the delegation did not provide any evidence to show that detained citizens were not being punished, they stated that no one was currently serving a sentence for crossing the border for economic reasons.

Convictions notwithstanding, refugees returned from China and South Korea are detained and interrogated for failing to obtain proper travel documents. North Korean detention centers and labor camps are notorious among former inmates for harsh punishment and human rights abuses, especially for women, reported Amnesty International and the Citizen's Alliance.

Female detainees are carefully screened for pregnancy because mixed-race children and children conceived out of wedlock are illegal and subject to compulsory abortion, the alliance said.

The DPRK delegation admitted that such illegal pregnancies are aborted, but added if an illegal child is brought to term, it has the same rights as any other Korean child.

Refugees reported the contrary, saying that pregnant women too far along for abortions are subjected to violence intended to induce miscarriages. Witnesses also reported infanticide of illegal children.

While the delegation from North Korea did not address the issue of infanticide, Ho said, "It is groundless to say that pregnancy caused by sex out of wedlock is punished, it is not true, not possible, and illegal."

The delegation offered no evidence or conflicting testimonies to bolster it's denials.

Throughout the session, many committee members emphasized the need for comprehensive, gender-disaggregated statistics on overlooked topics like women's employment, spousal homicide and abuse, marital rape, trafficking, rural women's poverty and HIV/AIDS.

CEDAW committee member Heisoo Shin said, "I think all of us felt in common that they clearly lacked understanding of what discrimination means, and had no real data or analysis, so this is just beginning."

Copyright 2005 by United Press International.