North defectors sold as cybersex slaves in China

Jilin, China, June 10: Many North Korean defectors end up in the sex trade in China, according to reports. CNN quoted a girl who was confined to a tiny apartment in northeast China with other victims, as saying the broker she trusted to plan her escape from North Korea sold her to a cybersex operator.

It says thousands of North Korean girls and women share her plight and some are as young as nine years old, abducted or trafficked to work in China’s multimillion-dollar sex trade.

London-based non-profit organisation Korea Future Initiative (KFI) found women often enslaved in brothels, sold into repressive marriages or made to perform graphic acts in front of webcams in satellite towns near cities close to China’s border with North Korea.

If caught by the Chinese authorities, they face repatriation to North Korea where defectors are often tortured. CNN interviewed the girl after her escape from captivity with the help of a South Korean pastor who was talking online with her as a cybersex customer.

“Don’t worry, we are going to rescue you," he

told her. “Thank you. I'm afraid,” she typed back.

No official statistics are showing exactly how many North Koreans have fled their country, which is home to about 25 million people. South Korea says it has welcomed more than 32,000 defectors since 1998.

“It is much easier for them to flee because they are not usually enrolled in formal employment at a factory or a state firm where any absence would be immediately reported,"

Yeo Sang Yoon, from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, an NGO in Seoul, told CNN.

Lee (name changed), whom the South Korean pastor saved, grew up in a family of low-level communist party cadres in North Korea. She felt her parents were too strict.

One day, after getting into a fight with them, she decided to cross border into China. She found a broker who promised her job in a restaurant, which was fake. –Agencies