UN report on prison camps in North Korea

"From the moment she was arrested, she was ordered to throw herself to the ground to cause a miscarriage. She did it three or four times, but nothing happened. Then she got a syringe. I saw her feed with my own eyes ... I heard her cry, but then the baby was placed face down, wrapped in plastic and taken out of the cell by a prison guard. The woman received no care. She died after about a week. "

The testimony from inside a North Korean labor camp for dissidents comes from a woman interviewed by the UN human rights body OHCHR in South Korea. In the new report, the OHCHR has collected stories from more than 100 North Korean women who were imprisoned in their home country between 2009 and 2019, but who eventually managed to cross the border.

The report contains brutal depictions of how defectors who are discovered are treated by North Korea.

Many of the women in the report were sexually abused and raped or saw fellow prisoners. Prisoners who reported the abuse were punished twice for not getting food - often collective punishment.

"I was extremely hungry. I ate rice and other leftovers in the washing water after washing the prison guards' plates ", says a woman.

The stories of how women were forced to have an abortion - or abused until they had a miscarriage - are numerous.

The guards laid bricks on her back and forced her to walk around with them every day for about a week. Eventually she gave birth to her child, who was still alive. I was told to wrap the child and put it outside, ”says a woman about the fate of her fellow prisoner.

North Korea has for years been accused of widespread human rights abuses, but has responded that it is only Western propaganda.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet says the report contains heartbreaking depictions of women trying to flee their homeland in search of a better life.

"OHCHR will continue to collect this type of evidence, in order to demand criminal liability whenever possible," Bachelet wrote in a statement.