Page 163 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

10 percent of the population which is critical to maintaining
the Kim regime in power, the other 22.5 million North
Koreans represent a marginalized majority, exposed to the
multigenerational impact of human insecurity, including
poverty and hunger. Vulnerable groups, especially women and
girls, people in detention, and those classified as low songbun
due to their perceived disloyalty, have experienced extreme
personal, political, community, food, health, economic, and
environmental insecurity.

In addition to empowering the people of North Korea
through information from the outside world and focusing
on abductees, POWs, and unjustly held detainees, trilateral
collaboration can target the plight of North Korean refugees.
Further research and documentation are needed to clarify the
number, status, and humanitarian situation of North Korean
refugees and officially dispatched workers in China and Russia
in particular. China must be persuaded to cease and desist its
policy of refouling North Korean refugees under the pretext
that they are “illegal economic migrants.” This is a direct and
blatant violation of China’s obligations under the 1951 UN
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967
Additional Protocol.

The governments and civil society organizations of the United
States, South Korea, and Japan must urgently seek ways to
reach out to the North Koreans trapped in China and Russia
and educate them on the path to seeking asylum. North
Korean refugee protection and rescue must become a pillar of
trilateral North Korean human rights policy. In the United
States, to provide the resources necessary for North Korean

162 Section II : Human Rights, Abductees, Forced Repatriation of Refugees and the Regional Implications