Amid the worsening state of human trafficking on the Sino-North Korea border, a young female North Korean defector about to be sold by human traffickers to Inner Mongolia (China) has been saved and is now living in South Korea.
“A young woman, not yet 20 years old, living in a village near the Sino-North Korean border was fooled into going to China by a broker and then became a victim of human trafficking,” said the Daily NK’s defector source. “The broker was so cruel that he sold her to two Chinese families over a period of several months to earn himself some money, and forced her to run away from the family each time. He was then going to send her to Inner Mongolia to earn even more money.”
The defector source, who had heard what happened to the woman from an acquaintance, further said that she collected some money and rescued the woman from the broker. The woman is now living a new life in South Korea.
“I was so sad to hear that a North Korea woman just like me was suffering because of human trafficking, and she was so young and in such a pitiful situation that I collected some money and bought her from the broker myself,” she recalled. “There are still a lot of North Korean women suffering as victims of human trafficking as we speak.”
Offering a recent example, a Ryanggang Province-based source added, “Some time ago, a woman in her mid-20s went to China to earn some money because she was in dire financial straits. But she was fooled by her broker.”
“He told her that she could earn money in China but then just sold her to a Chinese man,” she lamented.
Many North Korean female victims of human trafficking are cheated by brokers who tell them that they can help them defect or earn money, the source explained. North Korean women can sell for 40,000 to 100,000 yuan. The younger the woman and the further she needs to travel [to her new Chinese family or husband], the more expensive she is.
“There are a lot of men in Inner Mongolia who want North Korean women,” said the Ryanggang Province- based source. “In their thirst for ever-higher profits, brokers are sending North Korean women out to the inner provinces because people there will pay through the nose.”
The North Korean authorities have recently increased their surveillance and patrols of the Sino-North Korean border, which has led to a fall in defections, but has also increased the “price” of North Korean women. Brokers hoping to make more profits are now focusing on luring as many victims as possible.
One defector who was a victim of human trafficking told Daily NK on condition of anonymity, “Most North Korean women who fall victim to human trafficking actually know they’ll be sold to Chinese men, so they try to defect to China […] There were around 10 other women in the place I was sold to and they were all bought by Chinese men.”
Both defector sources reported that many defector women in China use the Chinese messenger app “WeChat” to communicate with each other. They share their own stories in group chats, and there are some cases in which women in unfortunate situations are helped by other women.
