North Korea Research Paper

Imagine yourself in a world where you have no rights. You have no freedom, no choices, and you come face to face with death everyday. Every year, thousands of people die in the horrible labor camps around the world. Citizens constantly deal with torture and abuse, while others face death, a force no one can ever beat, no matter how much they try. In the horrible labor camps in North Korea, every citizen, whether a child or an adult, are forced to work. In North Korea, thousands are faced with forced labor and many are dying because of it. First, people in North Korea are having their freedom of choice taken away. In addition to psychological torture, laborers are subjected to physical torture.

North Korea has been hiding concentration camps from the entire world for years. Their restrictive laws keep the rest of the world from finding out, or that’s what the tiny country tries to achieve. This results in a major problem. Many people are being held against their will in camps that feed them barely any food and other necessary resources-- Some even resorted to desperate measures. “One witness said that young male inmates in North Korean prison camps became so desperate for food they would eat live worms or snakes caught in the field to feel something in their stomachs” (Park, CNN) This catastrophe affects “...up to 200,000 prisoners...” (Reist 5) and needs to be fixed. There are many stories about people who have been taken by the North Korean government and were put in concentration camps. For example, two foreign journalists were visiting North Korea and were put into a camp with no real reason specified from North Korea; it’s believed that these two girls are innocent. “[The ladies] were tried and convicted of grave crimes against North Korea, the nature of which was never specified” (NPR 6). They are

The Secret State of North Korea offered a great look into what basic things North Koreans are lacking. Even within the realm of Communism. Lack of freedoms, lack of food, lack of community, lack of trust, lack of a social society, lack of programs for children, lack of equality, and a lack of information. When Kim Il-Sung created North Korea, the government was based on Marxism and Leninism, called “Juche.” Just as the Soviets, the North Koreans followed suite with massive inequality between the government officials and the common people. The documentary showed its viewers what the government is omnipresent in the everyday lives of its people, so much so that recordings of daily life are illegal, and “random” searches take place commonly.

North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons program is a major international crisis. In early September of this year the radical regime of North Korea conducted a Nuclear Weapons test, which broke regional stability and put the world on alert. North Korea continues to test intercontinental ballistic missiles and develop more dangerous nuclear warheads to eventually strategically strike South Korea and the United States. The test was later confirmed by many intelligence agencies as real and extremely powerful. With current policies failing to address the issue of North Korean Nuclear weapons program the international community should implement policies of coercive diplomacy, non-government organization executed soft power or putting pressure on China to end the threat of a nuclear weapons attack.

While growing numbers of labor camp prisoners rise, Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of democratic peoples of North Korea, has been brutally violating humans rights laws, as he treats innocent prisoners as unwanted objects. Food is the biggest competition to fight for in these torture camps, and even people associated in building an equal society loot this prized possession. Recent research, gathered from lucky escapees from North Korean camps say that malnutrition is a very big problem in North Korea as “ Bureaucrats, party officials, army officers... ended up stealing about 30% of the aid”(Blaine Harden). As the percentage of lack of food is on the rise, so are the victims in North Korean labor camps. Many new infants are born in the camps

In a recent study poling American citizens, our freedom of religion was listed as second to all other rights by a nearly innumerable margin. With that, it comes as no surprise to most that Kim Jong-Un's ordered execution of 33 Christian missionaries would earn a role as a leading news story in the United Sates. My words, however, have no value or affiliation with the United Sates of America; this issue is rooted thousands of miles away, as North Korea contiues to inflict persecution upon citizens living out their Faith. Practicing “underground” several citizens live each day in fear of their true identity beign exposed, of suffering a criminals death, or of their families having to go on without them. This fear is embodied by the people of North Korea, even as the world around them begins to find peace and acceptance among religions, but under a dicatoriship rule, there is no contest to the assimiliation that aims for neutrailty.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, is a country in east Asia. North Korea officially describes itself as a socialist state, but it is widely recognized as a dictatorship. Kim ll-sung is the first supreme leader of North Korea, and the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un. Under the regime of the Kims, North Korea isolated itself away from the rest of the world. It is a perfect archetype of a “closed society”. Since the beginning of the rule of the Kims, the condition in North Korea have worsened, where citizens have little to no civil rights.

A commision that was established in 2013 by the United Nations Human Rights Council in order to investigate human rights violations in North Korea stated about human rights violations in North Korea, “The gravity, scale, and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world” ("OHCHR | North Korea"). This sentiment is shared among many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International UK (“North Korea Country Profile”), Human Rights Watch (“North Korea: UN Inquiry Needed”), and many other international organizations. Prison camps in North Korea have been likened to those from the Holocaust (Anna Fifield) by some former holocaust survivors, comparing the current camps to those that they experienced in Auschwitz. Prison camps in North Korea are used for a wide swath of reasons beyond what one would normally consider a crime. You can be imprisoned for many reasons, including speaking against the government, being in contact with South Korea, crossing the border, officials who fail to implement a policy, being related to anyone who does any of these things, and more seemingly arbitrary reasons (“North Korea: Political Prison Camps”). What makes these punishments so much worse is the awful punishment and treatment that prisoners at these camps receive. It’s been reported that around 40% of prisoners die from malnutrition (“North Korea: Political Prison Camps”), and many more die from other reasons. Every person who survived one of these prison camps who has been interviewed said that they witnessed at least one public execution. Many of the camps that we know of provide no bedding or blankets to their inmates, which is made worse by the fact that the temperature in the regions of these camps are -20 to -30 degrees Celsius, which is -4 to -22 degrees Fahrenheit, on average (“North Korea: Political Prison Camps”). However,

The cruel and unruly torture that is done to the prisoners in North Korean concentration camps, are a reminder of the horrors that occurred during the holocaust by the Nazis and other Axis power. In these North Korean prison camps many prisoners die because of mistreatment, and lack of supplies; The United States and South Korea have estimated around 200,000 people imprisoned within many of these North Korean concentration camps. There is also an estimated 400,000 people who have died in these concentration camps from torture, starvation, and execution. North Korea’s Regime which controls all governmental aspects of North Korea created concentration camps for political prisoners and the family member of the political prisoners who have

This is a country led by an individual who doesn’t have the country and its people’s best interests at heart. What he says goes, and this is a dangerous system as the rewards are low but risks high for society and the country as a cohesive unit. “Deadly attack dogs, kidnappings, public executions, starvation, thought-control, religious persecution and forced marriages. A new United Nations report reveals in grim detail how the North Korean government terrorizes its own people. It also declares the country’s young dictator, Kim Jong, guilty of crimes against humanity” (Smith). Kim Jong is a ruthless dictator who uses any means possible of oppression to subdue his people. The international community took a while to, but finally started to take action and labeled him as a criminal against

“There is no independent media, functioning civil society, or religious freedom” (Human Rights Watch). Getting caught trying to run away resulted in many different ways “Public execution by hanging or firing squad, and prolonged detention in boxes so small that prisoners cannot lie down or stand up, causing loss of circulation or limb-atrophy that often leads to death within weeks” (North Korean Gulags). North Korea remains among the most harshly repressive countries in the world. United Nations inquiry found that North Korea’s human rights abuses include murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, and rape. Anyone could get sent to these secret camps for no reason just because their leader says so. One man talked about the places they slept at “Conditions were horrific with as many as 50 people crammed into one room, each one having just enough space to lie huddled together, person-to-person inside”. They crammed people in small rooms when the have a 31 mile camp. The UN reported on North Korea and included details of starvation, killings, and huge prison camps holding up to 120,000 people. “North Korea is in a category North Koreans sent to prison camps and detention centers are often subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of its own when it comes to human rights violations” said by Amnesty International (Godhill). No matter who you were you could have been sent to the horrendous concentration camp. “Crimes against humanity with strong resemblances to those committed by the Nazis, a United Nations inquiry has concluded” (Walker,

The situation for the people of North Korea is growing more desperate every day due to the conditions the government has put on it’s people. From famine to imprisonment and concentration camps there is unmistakeable misery. North Korea needs to have intervention from other countries to assist their people with human rights reform. Also South Korea has challenged North Korea to prove it does not violate human rights of its citizens. “For starters, there's a resurgent famine driven by gross government mismanagement that threatens millions of lives, hundreds of thousands of political prisoners languish in concentration camps, and an estimated half-million refugees remain in hiding from forced repatriation that often results in torture and execution” (Hong). In this quote Hong explains that these people needed help because they feel threatened, so they are scared for what will happen next. Hong’s opinion that, North Korea

North Korea has closed its market to foreign goods so that other countries are prevented from selling their goods there. Besides this, North Korea also does not have the technology or infrastructure to take advantage of its resources and therefore the people suffer because the resources go unused. Ever since an early age, people in North Korea are indoctrinated into glorifying a monotone culture set out by its propagandist government. All media and and publications are strictly controlled by the state and any access to foreign culture is restricted. In addition to that, testimonies were given of the brutal conditions of the prisons, where beatings and torture such as electric shocks were common. Forced labour was very common and those who took part in actions that were contrary to state interests, face arbitrary forms of punishment. Furthermore, threats of detention, forced labour and public execution were used to generate fearful obedience among the civilians. The North Korean government is controlled by a one-party monopoly and a dynastic leadership that does not tolerate pluralism and systematically exploits basic

One alternative sometimes offered to the family is to allow the government to take the child and to deposit him or her into a government-run institution for the disabled. One former high-level official interviewed by the U.N. Commission testified that government officials would routinely visit families who had a disabled child and urge them to turn the child over to the state. A 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry found that abuses in North Korea were without parallel in the contemporary world. They include extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, and other sexual violence. North Korea operates a series of secretive prison camps where perceived opponents of the government are sent to face torture and abuse, starvation rations, and forced labor. Fear of collective punishment is used to silence dissent. There is no independent media, functioning civil society, or religious freedom. In October, heavy pressure on North Korea at the UN General Assembly in New York and North Korea’s concern over the possibility of a referral to the International Criminal Court prompted a first-ever meeting between North Korean diplomats and Marzuki

Since the 1950s during and after the Korean war, North Korean people have been fleeing their country for political, religious, economic or personal reasons. The main cause of defection is that the social rights of North Korean people have been severely violated under the Kim family’s political dynasty.  The violation includes famine, imprisonment, torture, murder and enslavement. North Korean refugees go through the life threatening process to get a better life while going through many obstacles.