Japan, US discuss North abduction issue at UN meet

>> NEW YORK: Japanese and US ambassadors to the United Nations highlighted the issue of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese and other nationals as the UN Security Council took up the human rights situation in the isolated country.

“The abduction of foreign nationals by the DPRK is a case where human rights violations and threats to international peace and security clearly overlap,” Japan’s Ambassador Koro Bessho said. The DPRK is the acronym of North Korea’s official name — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Hundreds of nationals from [South Korea], Japan and other countries have been abducted and disappeared. Abduction committed by the DPRK undermines the sovereignty of the countries concerned and casts fear over the lives and safety of their citizens,” he said.

“At the same time, this issue is a grave human rights violation as abductees’ invaluable futures have been stolen and the bonds with their families have been severed,” Mr Bessho added.

US Ambassador Samantha Power told the Security Council of her recent meeting in Japan with Sakie Yokota, whose daughter Megumi was abducted to North Korea in 1977 at age 13 and has become a symbol of the Japanese abductees. Ms Sakie “told me that nearly 40 years later, not a day goes by when she does not feel the overwhelming pain of being separated from her daughter, a pain made worse by not knowing her daughter’s fate,” Ms Power said.

“As a mother myself, I can’t fathom the anguish of having my daughter taken away and not being able to find out what happened to her. It is every parent’s worst nightmare and it is a nightmare being lived daily by many families around the world.”

“There are so many families in Japan and [South Korea] who have been forced to endure a similar nightmare as a result of the actions of the DPRK,” Ms Power said. “Many fear they will never get to see them again. It is a pain that ripples across generations and is felt to this day.”

Friday’s meeting was the third of its kind held by the UN Security Council, following ones in 2014 and 2015. It came ahead of next week’s anticipated adoption by the UN General Assembly of a resolution denouncing Pyongyang for human rights abuses. Just after the meeting, ambassadors from the United States, Japan and South Korea were among the attendees at a side event where two North Koreans shared their personal stories of fleeing the regime.

Kim Jeong Ah, who escaped North Korean military conscription in 2006, spoke about her harrowing experiences both in the country and as a victim of human trafficking in China. When she left for South Korea in 2009, Chinese policies required her to leave behind her daughter born in China.

“There are so many North Korean defector women who gave birth in China and who really wish to live with their children,” Ms Kim said. She is the founder of an organisation called Tongil Mom which aims to reunite North Korean escapee mothers with children left in a third country.

“If there were no repatriation policy by the Chinese authorities, then there would be no forced separation between North Korean defector moms and their children,” she added.

“Sending back North Koreans who have risked their lives to [escape] is a very severe violation of human rights. If the Chinese government stopped its policy of repatriation, then the human rights situation in North Korea would significantly improve.”