Female political detainees have suffered atrocities at prison camps in communist North Korea where they often fall victim to rape, brutal executions, and have their babies fed to dogs, a South Korean newspaper has learned from defectors.
The graphic testimony comes after a report issued by the U.S. State Department in August revealed that North Korean detainees held at prison camps are beaten to death and starved until they resemble “walking skeletons,” “dwarfs,” and “cripples.”
Citing South Korea’s Donga Ilbo newspaper, United Press International (UPI) highlights the graphic testimony from North Korean defectors about what imprisoned women face under communist dictator Kim Jong-un’s regime.
UPI reports:
Women who are raped in North Korean prison camps are executed and prisoners are frequently stoned to death before their families, according to recent testimonies from defectors in South Korea.
…
After giving birth, women are not only executed, their newborn babies are fed to guard dogs.
According to the South Korean news outlet, which noted that the defectors’ statements were provided to South Korea’s Unification Media Group, security guards are known to sexually assault the women while seeking to trade sexual favors for less work at prison camps.
UPI learned from a defector who reportedly “grew up in a North Korean prison camp for more than two decades” that women who become pregnant after being raped by guards are “secretly killed by guards.”
Identified as 29-year-old Park Ju-yong, the defector added that guards murder the mothers after childbirth and their newborn babies are subsequently fed to guard dogs.
“The guards are ultimately dismissed from the camps as punishment,” notes UPI.
Park said the horrid executions involved “thousands of stones.”
“People would throw their rocks hard. Each time the rock would hit the victim, their bodies would burst with blood,” revealed the defector. “Their flesh would fall off until you could see their bones, and they would die without execution by gun.”
Prisoners and even family members are forced to stone inmates. The guards reportedly threatened to kill those who refuse.
Describing the political prison system in North Korea, the State Department indicated that they are “designed to segregate from the general prison population those considered ‘enemies of the State’ and ‘unredeemable’ because they have committed political crimes and to punish them for those crimes through unending hard labor.”
“Those sent to the camp include officials perceived to have performed poorly in their job, people who have criticized the regime, and anyone suspected of engaging in anti-government activities,” it added. “However, some Kaechon [facility] prisoners are victims of the regime’s ‘three generations of punishment,’ in which three generations of a prisoner’s family are also sent to the camp and may die there without having committed a crime themselves.”
Many of the political prisoners are reportedly serving life sentences.