North Korean women who escaped reveal horror as they beg UN to take Kim Jong-Un down

Two defectors from North Korea brought their harrowing testimonies to the United Nations, urging for Kim Jong-un, the country's authoritarian leader, to be indicted for crimes against humanity.

Eunju Kim, a North Korean refugee who initially escaped in 1999 due to famine, was caught and repatriated from China, only to flee again, addressed the United Nations. She asserted that Kim Jong-un must be held accountable for serious human rights abuses.

Eunju Kim recounted how her father died from starvation and shared with UN diplomats that on her first escape, she, alongside her mother and sister, were sold for less than $300 to a Chinese man after crossing the Tumen River into China. They were later apprehended and deported back to North Korea, only to make a second successful escape across the river in 2002.

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Gyuri Kang, who faced persecution with her family due to her grandmother's religious convictions, managed to leave North Korea amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She informed the General Assembly of the execution of three friends in North Korea; two were put to death for watching South Korean television dramas.

At the high-level meeting attended by the 193-member international body, these two women, now residents of South Korea, narrated the grim reality faced by North Koreans—a situation the UN special investigator Elizabeth Salmón described as "absolute isolation" since the pandemic's onset in early 2020.

Reflecting a devastating trend, the number of defectors escaping the clutches of North Korea has plummeted since the late 1990s.

Ms. Salmón stated that North Korea's border closure has exacerbated an already severe human rights situation, with new laws enacted since 2020 and harsher punishments, including the death penalty and public executions.

She also raised another human rights concern, stating that the deployment of North Korean troops to support Russia in its war against Ukraine has sparked worries about "the poor human rights conditions of its soldiers while in service, and the government's widespread exploitation of its own people."

The "extreme militarisation" of North Korea allows it to keep its population under surveillance, and it exploits the workforce through a state-controlled system that funds its growing nuclear program and military ventures, according to Ms. Salmón.

North Korea's UN ambassador Kim Song dismissed the allegations that his country violates human rights as "a burlesque of intrigue and fabrication" insisting that tens of millions of North Koreans enjoy human rights under the country's socialist system.

He accused the West of being the larger violator, citing racial discrimination, human trafficking, and sexual slavery.