Day: December 23, 2021

Kim Seo-yeong and Lee Su-jin left North Korea to make a dangerous 3,700-mile-trek to freedom not only to escape a tyrannical government and a dire economy. They also wanted to escape a relentlessly patriarchal society that would have tied their destinies to the men in their lives.

In North Korea, they said, their identities would be limited to being wives, mothers or housekeepers. As two twenty-somethings, Kim Seo-yeong and Lee Su-jin (both pseudonyms) yearned for more.

“To be honest, I lived a hopeless life in North Korea,” Kim Seo-young told RFA. “It’s not easy to live in a society where I can’t do what I want to, and where my efforts don’t bear fruit.”

She and Lee Su-jin were part of a group of 13 North Korean escapees who arrived in Southeast Asia in October 2019, en route to their final destination, South Korea, the following year.

“Not being allowed to pursue my dreams pained me the most,” Lee told RFA.

“I really wanted to attend medical school, but I couldn’t go because of my todae,” she said, referring to the North Korean government’s practice of ranking every citizen’s social standing based on their assessment of their family’s loyalty dating back several generations.

“Many people are held back by their todae, no matter how smart or motivated they are.”

Three of four escapees are female

Her only hope for any kind of success, she said, was to “find a good man and get married right away.”

More than 33,000 North Koreans have successfully made their way to South Korea in the past several decades, according to statistics from the South Korean Ministry of Unification. More than 72% of these escapees have been female.

Young women in North Korea are under intense societal and familial pressure to get married early, so much so that a wedding can feel more like an obligation than a voluntary choice.

This is even true for women with successful careers, according to Lindsey Miller, the wife of a former British diplomat stationed in Pyongyang.

Miller, who lived in the North Korean capital between 2017 and 2019, told RFA she frequently interacted with female officials of the North Korean Labor Party and with single women from privileged families.

“[One woman] said the pressure from her parents to date and find someone was very strong. I heard from other North Korean women in Pyongyang who told me they felt under pressure from their parents as they got older, to find a husband to get married and have a family,” Miller said.

Death of autonomy

Kim and Lee said they came to view marriage as the death of their autonomy.

“In North Korea, once you marry and have a child, your own life as a woman ends,” Kim said. “The ambitions you had in your youth become irrelevant after getting married and having children. It’s really sad.”

“When I was in North Korea, I thought often that I want to get married late,” Lee said. “My aunt always said that the earlier women get married and settle down, the better, but I did not like that.”

A married woman must fulfill three roles: caretaker, housekeeper and, increasingly, breadwinner.

In years past men could support their families with the salary they got from their government-assigned jobs. But after the economy tanked with the collapse of North Korea’s main patron the Soviet Union 30 years ago, monthly salaries could barely cover a day’s expenses.

With housing and other basic necessities tied to their state jobs, men were unable to walk away, despite the meager pay. Increasingly, wives had to make money to support the family, usually by running family businesses trading in marketplaces that sprung up to serve demands the crumbling state sector failed to meet.

“It’s genuinely exhausting being a woman in North Korea,” said Park Sun-hwa, an escapee in her 40s who settled in South Korea in 2012, told RFA.

“The men cannot go out and earn money, so in order for us to prosper, women have no choice but to go out to make money while also doing all the housework,” Park Sun-hwa, also a pseudonym, said.

Mustered for free labor

In addition to their family duties, women are also routinely mobilized for free labor on government projects and mustered to waive flags in crowds for visiting foreign delegations, Kim Hye-yeong, a 50-year-old escapee who settled in South Korea in 2002, told RFA.

“During the morning rush hour, the members of the Socialist Women’s Union must play the drums and sing as part of the government’s propaganda efforts. They also have to deal with various tasks as assigned by the neighborhood watch unit, starting with cleaning the village every morning. When it snows, the main road must be cleared, and snow must be removed,” Kim Hye-yeong, a pseudonym, said.

“In South Korea, men have a duty to earn money and take responsibility for the household, but North Korean men are forced to work [almost] without pay, making it hard for everyone to survive,” said Kim.

“It’s so frustrating. It’s been many years since I left my hometown and came here, and it makes my heart ache every time I hear the news that nothing has changed and things have gotten worse,” she said.

Lee said that North Korean society generally disregards the concerns of women.

“Everyone just thinks that women should marry, have kids and submit to their husbands. This is so unlike South Korea, which has the mindset that women and men should be equal,” said Lee.

‘A place with no pleasures’

Lee acknowledged that the North Korean perspective on women I slowly changing, “it has not progressed as far as South Korea.”

That these two women find South Korea to be an egalitarian utopia is particularly telling. South Korea ranked 104^th out of 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap report, between Indonesia and Cambodia. The report did not rank North Korea due to lack of available data.

Life as a mother in North Korea is so hard that women no longer want to have children, the 2012 escapee Park said.

“Why should they suffer having a child in North Korea. Why make life worse by having a child in a place with no pleasures nor answers, where we can’t even fend for ourselves,” she said.

Though the global Me Too movement has not spread widely in North Korea, Park said that some women do stand up for themselves to protect their rights.

“Me Too isn’t a thing yet. Many women are reluctant to report such things because they are too shy about speaking up.”

Kim and Lee recently vacationed together in Jeju, a large island off South Korea’s southern coast known for its beaches, resorts and tourist attractions. Reflecting on their past two years in South Korea, they both said they are closer to achieving their dreams now than they were at any time in the North.

“I want to become a nurse and work in a hospital, with competence and composure,” Lee said.

Translated by RFA’s Korean Service Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A fishing community in central Vietnam is uniting to oppose a container port after police and workers for the development injured several fishermen who were rallying against the project. 

Hundreds of residents of the Binh Thuan commune in Quang Ngai province’s Binh Son district gathered on Dec. 17 to block National Highway 1A to demand the release of fishermen arrested earlier in the day for protesting construction of the port.

Project developers and provincial police had attacked protesters, leaving many seriously injured, said one woman named Nguyen Thi Be. She had tried to go fishing that morning but found her way cut off, she said.

“When I asked why we had to leave, they said we were no longer allowed to stay here, as they needed to start building the port,” said Be, whose name has been changed to protect her from retaliation by authorities.

“Other fishermen then gathered in large numbers and began to shout to oppose the construction, saying that we had to earn a living and that if the company was going to take the sea away from us, they would have to give us something else to live on.”

Project workers and police then attacked the crowd, Be said.

“One person’s teeth were broken, and some others suffered broken arms and scratches on their faces from all the beating and shoving. One of my arms was broken too. We are very angry,” she said.

Project developer the Hoa Phat Group was awarded approval in June 2019 to build the port in a U.S. $169 million project that has offered local fishing families compensation described by many as unequally distributed, leading to area protests.

“For most of us, our livelihood depends on fishing, and when the Hoa Phat Company began to encroach more and more on the sea, local people began to ask for compensation,” said one local resident surnamed Trung.

“But the company called it financial support instead of compensation, and when providing the support they made it unequal and unfair,” he said. “People therefore got upset and began to block work on the project, with many setting up tents on the construction site in protest.”

Asked whether local authorities are supporting residents’ demands for better support, Nguyen Thi Be replied that commune officials said that residents should allow the company to proceed with its work, and that the company would gradually meet their demands.

“However, the company hasn’t done this, and so we have lost our confidence in the commune authorities,” she said.

RFA called the Binh Son District People’s Committee for comment on the case, but staff members refused to provide contact numbers for committee officials.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing them aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

More than two dozen Myanmar civilians died at the hands of militias supporting and opposing the country’s military rulers by mid-December, the highest number recorded in a single month since the junta took control of the government in a Feb. 1 coup, observers and rights activists said.

Many of those who died between Dec. 1-17 were believed to be informers for the other side. Some lost their lives during massacres in Sagaing and Mandalay regions and in northern Shan state, where the strongest opposition to the junta exists.

Myanmar has been in a state of turmoil since the military seized power from the elected government in a Feb 1 coup. Regime forces have killed 1,365 civilians and arrested 11,148 since February, mostly during nonviolent protests against the coup, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The latest tally of civilian deaths at the hands of militias include eight villagers taken from their homes in Sagaing’s Shwebo township by unknown gunmen, handcuffed and hanged outside their village on Dec. 9, residents said.

The military junta said that the villagers had been killed by members of a local branch of the People’s Defense Force (PDF), the armed wing of the National Unity Government, which says it is the legitimate government of Myanmar.

But residents told RFA that the villagers were killed by the military-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee militia, not by PDF members.

Kayjay, a resident of Shwebo, said it was clear from the scene of the massacre that the killings were not the work of the local PDF. Prior to the coup, residents who were members of country’s two main political parties — the National League for Democracy, known colloquially as the Reds, and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, referred to as the Greens — were able to live together despite political differences, he said. But the situation now has changed.

“There has been a complete split between the Greens who support the junta dictators and the Reds who support democracy for the people,” Kanjay said. “After the split, there were killings carried out by whoever had the first opportunity.”

Boh Naga, the PDF leader in Sagaing’s Pale township, justified killing civilians who operate as dalan, or informers, for the junta.

“Sometimes you have to get rid of a few in order to serve the majority,” he said. “Some are killing others out of selfish interests. Some are weeding out a few for the good of the many. In such a situation, we need to get rid of a few in order to benefit the masses.”

In November, junta forces killed and injured residents and torched homes in Kalay’s Inchun village in Sagaing, locals said.

Pyu Saw Htee informants in Kalay identified PDF members and sympathizers who were then pursued and killed by police and soldiers, the sources said. Members of the PDF meanwhile have also killed ward and village administrators in Kalay who were said to be informants to the junta, locals said.

Civilians believe there is no rule of law and that the military can easily kill people without consequence, said Maung, a Kalay resident.

“At present, there are no laws here. It is lawless,” he said. “We all have to exercise great care in our speech and actions. If we say something wrong, we could get killed.”

A video of a massacre of 10 people by junta soldiers who set up camp near Done Taw village in Sagaing’s Salingyi township went viral on social media on Dec 7.

Village residents have confirmed the incident. The junta has denied the allegation.

The government said on Dec. 17 that a man and four women were killed by PDF groups in Dauntgyi village in Sagaing’s Taze township. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said those killed were ordinary people, not informants for the military. He denied the Pyu Saw Htee’s existence.

“Ordinary people and people who do not support the [PDF] are often killed,” he said. “There are allegations that the army did the killings after they had killed each other. The allegations about Pyu Saw Htee were not true. There is no such group called Pyu Saw Htee.”

Other civilians killed include Arkar Phyo and his wife, Chan Mya Nyein, who were shot dead while riding a motorbike on Dec. 12 in front of a hospital in Chanmya Tharzi township in Mandalay region.

According to CCTV footage, the two were shot at close range. The junta blamed the local PDF for the killings and said that some members had been arrested within 24 hours after the incident.

Dr. Wint Wint Myaing, director of the Kutkai Township People’s Hospital in northern Shan state, was shot dead by gunmen on Dec. 14 between the township’s ward No. 7 and Naung Cho village. The junta said it was the work of an insurgent group but did not say which one.

Ye Tun, a political analyst and former lower house lawmaker from Hsipaw township in Shan state, said the security situation in the country has devolved into chaos.

“We cannot live together anymore now,” he told RFA. “It’s as if neither side no longer trusts the other. In the current situation, if he has the chance, he will kill me first or the other way around. So this is very dangerous.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law a bill banning imports from the Xinjiang region of China that lack proof they were not made with forced labor,  vowing to “use every tool at our disposal” to keep products made under coercion out of supply chains.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act blocks the import of goods into the U.S. from Xinjiang without “clear and convincing evidence” that they were not made with forced labor. It also authorize sanctions on foreign individuals and entities found responsible for rights abuses.

“The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure supply chains are free from the use of forced labor — including from Xinjiang and other parts of China,” Biden tweeted after signing the bill.

“When I met with Uyghur internment camp survivors, family members, and advocates in earlier this year, I promised to promote accountability,” tweeted Secretary of State Antony Blinken “Today, @POTUS signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, underscoring our commitment to combatting forced labor.”

Biden’s signature came a week after the Senate’s unanimous passage of the bill, a move that matched full House support and underscored bi-partisan support for policies to counter abuses of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang.

“The ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Chinese government against the Uyghur people and other Muslim minorities is a challenge to the conscience of the entire world, which is why the House twice passed legislation to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its exploitation of forced labor and put an end to this horrific practice,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

President Dolkun Isa of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) said Biden’s signature sends “a powerful message to the world that slave labor is unacceptable in the 21st century” that he expects will “encourage democratic countries especially the G7 countries” to follow suit.

“This piece of legislation will punish companies that benefit from the sweat and blood of Uyghur slave labor,” added Isa.

Series of rebukes over Xinjiang

The Biden administration and its predecessor have ramped up U.S. responses to Xinjiang abuses, including sanctions such as visa restrictions and asset freezes of Chinese officials, as well as import restrictions on tomatoes, wigs and solar energy equipment over forced labor concerns.

The Commerce Department recently added 34 research institutes and tech firms to a blacklist of purveyors of technologies that can be used to surveil and repress minorities.

Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), called Thursday’s enactment of the forced labor law “a great day for America and the Uyghur people who were enslaved and subjected to genocide in Communist China.”

Turkel, who is one of four USCIRF officials hit by Chinese sanctions this week, said China “has polluted the global supply chain with tainted consumer products made by enslaved Uyghurs” and this required a global effort to counter.

“The U.S. shouldn’t fight this alone, and I urge others, European countries, in particular, to get on the right of history by robust policy and legislative responses,” said Turkel, who is also a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank.

China, which angrily dismisses criticism of its treatment of Uyghurs as foreign interference in its internal affairs, has sustained a series of international rebukes over its policies toward the 12 million Uyghurs and small numbers of ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic language-speaking Muslims.

On Dec. 6, citing abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere, the U.S. announced it will send athletes but not government officials to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which open in February. Five other countries have joined the diplomatic boycott.

Intel apologizes

On Dec. 9, an independent Uyghur Tribunal in London ruled that China has committed genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. Its ruling was based on testimony from survivors, witnesses and experts on the network of detention camps in which China has held as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other minorities.

Beijing claims the camps are vocational training centers set up to fight poverty and extremism. 

Although the tribunal is non-binding and has no state backing, Uyghur groups responded to the findings of genocide and crimes against humanity by preparing or proceeding with lawsuits in Argentina and the U.K.

China’s pushback against the Xinjiang has included a massive propaganda effort to stir up boycotts of foreign brands and to depict Uyghurs as content with and grateful for Chinese rule, sanctions against U.S. officials, and threats to deny market access to foreign consumer brands.

The U.S. chipmaker Intel became the latest firm to find itself in China’s crosshairs, when a letter to suppliers that it “is required to ensure our supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region” stirred up anger in the country that was amplified by state media.

“Although our original intention was to ensure compliance with US laws, this letter has caused many questions and concerns among our cherished Chinese partners, which we deeply regret,” Intel said in an apology posted Thursday on China’s version of Twitter.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, discussing the Intel controversy, repeated Beijing’s rejection of forced labor concerns.

“We have stressed many times that the allegations about forced labor in Xinjiang are lies cooked up by anti-China forces in the U.S. with the purpose of tarnishing China’s image, undermining stability in Xinjiang and holding back China’s development,” he told a news briefing in Beijing Thursday.

Reported and translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written by Paul Eckert.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday affirmed his intention to visit Myanmar in January, rejecting widespread criticism that his trip will strengthen the military junta now ruling the country and confer legitimacy on leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Hun Sen will make his Jan. 7 to 8 visit as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the 10-nation regional bloc. Myanmar has been excluded from ASEAN top-level meetings over the junta’s refusal to allow bloc representatives to meet with jailed opposition leaders.

Addressing foreign critics, Hun Sen noted that other countries have not yet broken diplomatic relations with Myanmar.

“So why can’t I go there myself?” he said. “I have an ambassador there, and Myanmar has an embassy of its own in Phnom Penh. There is nothing wrong with my trip to Myanmar.”

Myanmar is still a member of ASEAN and should not be cut off from the rest of the bloc, he said.

“ASEAN will not function if it has only nine members,” he said.

Speaking to RFA, Bo Hla Tint — ambassador to ASEAN from the foreign ministry of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government — expressed concern over Hun Sen’s coming visit, saying the Cambodian prime minister may be confusing his role as leader of his own country with his role as ASEAN chairman.

“So if he goes as the new chairman of ASEAN, as he said he will, he can’t invite Min Aung Hlaing to any leadership summit or to any other events involving senior leaders. This is the current stand of ASEAN, as everyone knows,” he said.

“[Hun Sen] has to listen to the voice of the people of Myanmar and to the voice of the legitimate representatives of the people of Myanmar” if he wants to end the violence and restore democracy there, Bo Hla Tint said.

Former Cambodian lawmaker Um San An, a member of the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, said that a visit to Myanmar by Hun Sen — who has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years — will only strengthen that country’s military rulers.

And though foreign countries have not closed their embassies in Myanmar, many have suspended diplomatic relations.

“They have also cut off aid, frozen the assets of Myanmar’s military officials, and imposed sanctions on the military regime,” Um San An said.

U.S. and European Union officials will also attend ASEAN meetings only if Myanmar representatives are not present, he said.

Countries keeping embassies in Myanmar may now be watching for a change in the country’s political direction, said professor of political science and commentator Em Sovannara.

“They want to maintain their relationships and wait to see if the regime will change to democracy. Embassies can also help with humanitarian assistance and support for other activities for the people of Myanmar,” he said.

If Hun Sen really wants to help resolve Myanmar’s political crisis, he must insist on meeting with Myanmar’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, now jailed for four years by the junta on charges widely seen as politically motivated, Sovannara said.

Myanmar’s military overthrew the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy on Feb. 1, saying voter fraud had led to the party’s landslide victory in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence for its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 1,365 people and arresting 8,200 over the last 10 months, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Richard Finney.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—officially atheist and traditionally hostile toward religion and related rituals, particularly what it calls “foreign” beliefs—has stepped up pressure on China’s faithful with a new decree that forbids online religious activity without government permission. From March 1, 2022, sermons and ceremonies by monasteries, churches and individuals will require special licenses. The policy flows from a religious work conference this month at which CCP chief Xi Jinping called for tighter state control over religious affairs and further “sinicization” of faiths to bring them in line with party policies.