In China, North Korean migrant women fall victim to human trafficking to escape poor economic conditions in their native country. North Korea's discrimination of women in the workforce, the traditional familial view of women as a burden, and the region's ever-increasing poverty serve as additional factors that motivate them to migrate to their neighboring country to find a better life. China's one-child policy decreased the amount of women in the country, growing the demand for trafficked sex workers and brides. An estimated 80% of North Korean defectors are women, about 60% of whom are sold in China's extensive human trafficking network., Women and girls who are trafficked are bought by cybersex brokers, sold into marriage, and forced into prostitution. North Korea's punishments for defectors and China's lack of legal protection for North Korean refugees force women to withstand abuse to avoid facing deportation.
History
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the year 1991 and wavering ties with Russia and China, the North Korean regime lost financial support and fell into an increasingly severe economic depression. Many factories shut down due to a lack of natural resources and an inability to pay laborers, forcing the government to drastically cut food rations. In 1994, Kim Jung Il announced that citizens had to be self-sufficient because he was shutting down the railway system, leaving many people without access to food. The ensuing famine exacerbated by "agricultural disasters" killed 2 million North Koreans, from 1996 to 1999. In 2002, new economic policies increased the cost of food by 50% and decreased the purchasing power of money, this matter forcing people to spend 75 to 85% of money on groceries. The ever-worsening starvation conditions in North Korea motivated families to migrate to the neighboring nation of China. In the decade leading to 2006, 100,000 North Korean immigrants entered China searching for food and job security through the Yalu and Tumen rivers.
The $105 million trafficking market of North Korean women is mainly powered by the demand of the Shandong, Fujian, and Guangdong villages and the supply of the Yunnan province. China’s one-child policy fueled the desire for trafficked women. When it was implemented, the law motivated an increase in female infanticides and sex-selective abortions, creating the alarming ratio of 14 men to 1 woman that rural areas have today. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, men outnumber women in China by 34 million. The cultural practice of the commodifying of women also plays a role in China’s rampant human trafficking situation, as, historically, Confucian beliefs encouraged families to sell women into concubinage and servitude.
North Korean experiences with human trafficking
Some North Korean women are initially willing to be smuggled across the border in hopes of finding a better life. Although this is true, many women consent to this without knowing they are going to be trafficked, they can only hope for the best. Many times, smugglers promise to help them in good faith, but eventually sell them to trafficking brokers., Traffickers lure Korean women into migrating by promising them normal jobs in China like working as a maid or factory worker and then force them into the commercial sex industry. In other cases, North Korean women are sold by their own family in the hopes that, in China, they will work to provide them with financial support., Some families also sell their North Korean daughters as brides to Chinese men under the false premise that they will receive compensation.
There are many factors that facilitate the trafficking of North Korean women and girls, such as the fact that most traffickers are of ethnic Korean-Chinese men who are fluent in Korean, this circumstance increasing the trust these women have in their smugglers. Other factors include the corruption among border guards that allow the smuggling of women and the tendency of trafficked individuals to help traffic other Korean women.
Currently, 15% of the women and girls who are trafficked are bought by cybersex brokers, 30% are sold as brides, and 50% are forced into prostitution. While under the control of their captors, more than 60% of women experience physical and psychological abuse.,, North Korean women are forced to participate in sex, gang-rape, depraved cybersex performances, and hard labor (when sold to men in rural areas). Traffickers also try to break trafficked women's spirits to flee by chaining them for long periods of time and submitting them through prolonged rape periods. Women who forcefully refuse to be trafficked are beaten, starved, and even killed.