Trafficked North Korean Refugees

North Korean refugees are the perfect target for human trafficking since they receive no protections or human rights in China. All of the North Korean refugees Crossing Borders helps have been trafficked in China.

When North Korean refugees leave their country, they must travel north into China since to the south is the most militarized border in the world, the DMZ. When they step foot in China they break the law in both North Korea and in China.

China considers North Korean refugees illegal economic migrants despite the fact that they are a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951. If caught in China, North Korean refugee women are sent back to North Korea where they will serve time in North Korea’s infamous prison camps. In these camps they will be tortured and possibly executed.

Seventy percent of all North Korean refugees are women and 80 percent of those women have been sold, according to a US Congressional Report.

China’s Academy of Social Sciences reported that there will be between 30-40 million more boys than girls in China by the year 2020. China’s gender ratio has already reached an epic imbalance. This means that the country’s poor must find wives through other means.