Wednesday, November 26, 2008

North Korean women forced into sexual slavery in China

A Sky News investigation reveals hundreds of young North Korean girls crossing the border into China to escape the North Korean regime only to become embroiled in a hidden underworld of slavery and prostitution.

Posing as business people looking for women to entertain clients, and filming with a secret camera, Sky News went undercover in some of China's brothels.

A madam introduced us to a young and very nervous North Korean girl. Dressed in knee-high boots and a tiny mini-skirt, the girl waited for the madam to leave the room before telling her story in broken Chinese. She said she had been selling her body in China for about two years, earning around £200 per month. "When I first got here I was very frightened, I cried every day," she said.

Our contact also took us to a village near the North Korean border where we met a woman who was trafficked into China. Human smugglers tricked her with the promise of work. Only when she arrived safely in China did they tell her that she'd been sold for £1,000 to a Chinese peasant farmer who couldn't find a wife in his own village.

In desperation and grave danger they escape a totalitarian state, but for North Korea's women - whether trafficked as brides, or employed in the Chinese flesh trade - there is no safe refuge in China, only exploitation and abuse.

[Sky News]

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