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News Articles
Korean sex slaves take refuge in U.S.
Group first to be granted status since 2004 law relaxed
conditions
[May 6, 2006]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six refugees from North Korea,
including four women who say they were victims of sexual slavery
or forced marriages, have fled to the United States, a senator
said Saturday.
The group is the first from North Korea to be given official
refugee status since passage of a 2004 law that makes it easier
for North Koreans to apply for such status.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said the six refugees arrived at
an undisclosed U.S. location Friday night from a Southeast Asian
nation. He would not identify from which nation they came
because of worries about security for their families and to
avoid diplomatic complications with the country that sent them.
"This is a great act of compassion by the United States and the
other countries involved," said Brownback, a co-sponsor of the
law. He said that the refugees' arrival in the United States
showed "the act is working" by making the refugees' human rights
a part of U.S. policy toward the North.
The issue of North Korean human rights has gained attention in
Washington as international diplomatic efforts to curb North
Korea's self-announced nuclear weapons production program have
stalled.
President Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, branded
North Korea one of the three members of the "axis of evil,"
along with Iran and Iraq.
In 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, part
of which specified that the State Department would make it
easier for North Koreans to try for refugee status in the United
States.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have fled
across their border into China.
The U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights, Jay
Lefkowitz, told a congressional hearing last week: "We need to
do more -- and we can and will do more -- for the North Korean
refugees."
"We will press to make it clear to our friends and allies in the
region that we are prepared to accept North Korean refugees for
resettlement here," Lefkowitz said.
Bush appointed Lefkowitz last year, tasking him with raising the
human rights issue and providing help for refugees fleeing the
North.
North Korea long has been accused of torture, public executions
and other atrocities against its people. Between 150,000 and
200,000 people are believed to be held in prison camps for
political reasons, the State Department said in a report last
year.
Human rights activists have said that U.S. Embassy workers in
Asian countries have refused to help North Korean refugees.
Last year, Timothy Peters, founder of Helping Hands Korea, told
lawmakers at a hearing that U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing
rebuffed him when he tried to arrange help for a 17-year-old
North Korean refugee.
"I thought to myself, 'Is this the State Department's
implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act?"' he said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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