Forced Abortions on Female Prisoners Routine

That, according to the Korean Bar Association, is the abuse faced by female prisoners in North Korea

Pyongyang, North Korea (LifeNews.com) — Another report about the prison situation in North Korea confirms previous ones which have maintained that pregnant women in prisons there are routinely subjected to forced abortions. The Asian nation has been repeatedly condemned for its human rights abuses and the new report features firsthand accounts from North Korean refugees.

The Korean Bar Association, based in South Korea, released the new report which is based in interviews with about 100 North Korean defectors who came to the South after 2000.

The report shows that North Korean officials frequently jail citizens of the Asian nation on bogus charges and do not abide by the law when doing so. Some of the abuses include torture and sexual harassment of female inmates.

In the case of women in prison, 58 percent of the defectors interviewed said they had seen women be forced to have an abortion or had heard about such abortions take place.

This is the first time the Bar Association has released a report on North Korea’s human rights record since 1989 when it started monitoring the human rights record of South Korea.

Lee Kook-jae, a member of the bar association, told the Korea Times, “We researched North Korea’s human rights condition from the legal point of view for the first time. The world should make efforts to improve human rights there.”