Families Left Without Answers Three Years After Forced Returns to North Korea from China

The experts warned that those returned to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) may face enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, execution, torture, forced labour and sexual and gender-based violence.

Three years after China reportedly resumed large-scale forcible returns of North Korean nationals, the fate of many people sent back remains unknown. UN experts have raised serious concerns about their treatment and safety, alongside the risks facing others who could still be returned.

Without independent monitoring in either country, families have little opportunity to learn where their relatives are or what has happened to them. The experts warned that those returned to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) may face enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, execution, torture, forced labour and sexual and gender-based violence.

A woman returned after 25 years in China

The case of Kim Cheol-ok puts a name to the uncertainty surrounding those sent back. According to reports cited by the experts, she fled North Korea during the famine of the 1990s and was trafficked into China as a child.

Forced into marriage at 14, Kim experienced sexual violence and forced pregnancy. She lived in China for about 25 years and established family ties, but her irregular immigration status reportedly exposed her to harassment and restrictions. Chinese authorities detained her in April 2023 without access to legal representation. She was forcibly returned to North Korea that October, and her fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that her detention by China and the DPRK was arbitrary. Her experience reflects wider concerns about the vulnerability of North Korean women abroad. Reports indicate that some women who leave the country become victims of trafficking, forced marriage and sexual exploitation, leaving them exposed to abuse before they face the additional danger of being sent back.

Protection concerns follow the resumption of mass returns

Reports of serious human rights violations have emerged since large-scale returns reportedly resumed in 2023. The experts highlighted the danger facing people perceived as having sought asylum or having left North Korea without official permission. "These events form part of a longstanding pattern of serious human rights violations against individuals forcibly returned to the DPRK," they said. "In the absence of independent monitoring in either country, many returnees remain unaccounted for."

The experts questioned whether the protection needs of those returned had been adequately assessed, given the documented risk of severe punishment for leaving without authorisation or seeking protection abroad. "Irregular migration status does not diminish the obligation to respect the principle of non-refoulement," they said, referring to the protection against returning people to places where they face serious harm. A person's lack of immigration papers does not remove the need to examine the dangers they could face upon return.

Calls for answers and an end to unsafe returns

Efforts to establish what has happened to returnees continue to face persistent obstacles. The experts raised concerns about access to information on people returned to North Korea, including those in political prison camps, and about individuals in China who remain at risk of forcible return.

For people whose whereabouts are unknown, the absence of information also means an absence of essential safeguards against abuse. There is no independent monitoring to establish their circumstances or verify their treatment.

The experts called on China to refrain from returning North Korean nationals to situations where they face a real risk of serious human rights violations. They urged Chinese authorities to provide fair and effective procedures for assessing each person's need for international protection and to respect the principle of non-refoulement.

They also called on North Korean authorities to disclose the fate and whereabouts of those returned and ensure their protection.

For Kim Cheol-ok and others who remain unaccounted for, those demands concern the most basic unanswered questions: where they are, what has happened to them and whether they are safe.