Seoul: Female North Korean refugees who get repatriated by China face sexually abusive searches by prison guards who try to retrieve valuables concealed in their bodies, refugees who escaped to the South said today.

North Korea has been accused of controlling its population by shutting them off from the outside world, keeping them in fear through arbitrary and unlawful punishment, and running a network of political prisons to suppress dissent. Women defectors often hide money in their bodies before they set out from China to South Korea but once caught become subject to searches in which their private parts are violated by guards, some of the defectors said in a news conference.

It's more bearable when women guards conduct the search, but some of the men just put their dirty hands in our private parts. The main reason is to get money, said a refugee who spoke under the pseudonym Kim Sung-hee. She said she was caught in China trying to come to South Korea after escaping the North in 2000.

Some women, if they don't have cash on them, wrap rings or other items in plastic and hide them in their bodies, said another victim who had been sent back to the North after living in China for more than five years. Defectors caught heading to South Korea or who come in contact with religious groups face severe punishment that includes torture, while those who simply stayed in China to work are let off on lighter charges, the refugees said.

The majority of a group of 30 North Korea defectors in a survey said they suffered sexual torture while spending time in state prisons, said an expert on North Korean torture, Byun Ju-na, in a report. The forms of abuse cited in the report were largely violations of genitals with instruments such as sticks and whips.

North Korea calls itself a people's paradise and says criticism of its human rights is motivated by those trying to topple its government. About 1,000 refugees fleeing the North eventually find passage to the South each year, where they are almost always granted citizenship. The government of new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has called on the prickly neighbour to improve its human rights record, leading to a heated rebuke from Pyongyang which said such comments were an attack on its dignity and lifeblood.

Source : UNI