‘They consider us toys’: North Korean women forced to endure sexual violence from regime officials, report finds

North Korean officials sexually assault women with near total impunity and sexual abuse is so prevalent it has been normalised, a harrowing report has found.

The Human Rights Watch said women in the country are routinely forced to endure sexual violence by government officials, police, prison guards, interrogators and soldiers.

The profoundly patriarchal society means many women are ashamed of the abuse they experience and feel unable to demand accountability – deciding not to speak out because of feeble law enforcement and support services.

The damning report – titled “‘You Cry at Night, but Don’t Know Why’: Sexual Violence against Women in North Korea” – is based on dozens of interviews with sexual abuse victims who fled the totalitarian state.

“Unwanted sexual contact and violence ... is so common in North Korea it has come to be accepted as part of ordinary life,” the report claims.

Many North Koreans who researchers spoke to said that when an official in a position of power “picks” a woman, she has no choice but to comply with any demands he makes, whether for sex, money or other favours.

This happened to one woman being questioned by a police official in a pre-trial detention facility after she was caught trying to escape the country.

“He made me sit very close to him... [and] also touched me between the legs ... several times during different days,” Park Young-hee said.

“My life was in his hands, so I did everything he wanted. How could I do anything else?”

Reports like these about the so-called “hermit kingdom” – the most secretive and isolated regime in the world – are rare.

Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said: “Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret. North Korean woman would probably say ‘Me Too’ if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices are silenced in Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship.”

The black markets that have become a crucial source of income for many families are an area where sexual violence is prevalent.

“They consider us [sex] toys. We are at the mercy of men,” Oh Jung-hee, a former trader in her 40s, told researchers.

“It happens so often nobody thinks it is a big deal. We don’t even realise when we are upset. But we are human, and we feel it. So sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and don’t know why.”

According to the study, women said sexual abuse was so normalised that they did not deem it to be “unusual” – with some saying it had become accepted as part of daily life.

It said a dearth of sexual education and an unchecked abuse of power by the perpetrators were some of a number of factors that have created this attitude.

Only one of the sexual assault survivors researchers spoke to said she had tried to report it. The others did not report the assaults because they did not trust the police and did not think they would take action.

The organisation interviewed a total of 106 North Koreans, comprising 72 women, four girls, and 30 men. Some 54 of those interviewed had fled North Korea since 2011 – the year Kim Jong-un came to power.

Human Rights Watch urged North Korea to “acknowledge the problem of sexual violence” and ensure that it was “treated as a crime”.

According to the UN, the overwhelming majority of the country's 25 million citizens endure starvation and live with the threat of the gulag, forced labour camps and public execution.

A landmark UN report detailed cases of “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation”.

The UN estimates there to be between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners detained in four large political prison camps in the country.