DPR Korea: Isolation deepens despite country’s changes, says UN human rights official

That’s the picture painted by James Heenan, head of the UN human rights office (OHCHR) in South Korea’s capital, Seoul. His team monitors the DPRK from the outside because, as he says, “almost no one” can get in.

Talk to UN News in New York, Heenan depicts a country where famine persists, forced labor afflicts every family, and the border with China is so tightly closed that illegal crossings have ceased.

But he warned against viewing the DPRK – better known as North Korea – as a country frozen in time. “This country is constantly changing, just like the rest of the world,” he said.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

UN News: How does your office monitor human rights in the DPRK without direct access?

James Heenan: This is a difficult situation because we do not have direct access to the country. Almost no one does these days. It’s very closed. In fact, historically, this place has been very secretive. Therefore, we monitor from the outside.

We prioritize information from direct witnesses, namely people who experienced violations, or who witnessed them, or family members who experienced violations.

We are also increasingly dependent on Government information as the DPRK Government publishes more information, especially over the last eight or nine years. We use other sources such as satellite imagery.

UN News: How many people have you interviewed?

James Heenan: Yes, we interviewed about a thousand people. That might not sound like a lot if you’re coming from the other side of the world, but if you’re dealing with what is probably the most closed country in the world, it’s quite a lot.

UN News: How does the country’s isolation impact the general public?

James Heenan: Very few people enter or leave the country. Very little information comes in or out of the country. This has quite a serious impact on society.

They don’t have access to the internet. They don’t know what is happening outside or even inside the country.

The international humanitarian community, including the UN, hasn’t had access for five or six years, so when disaster strikes, they don’t have access to that kind of support.

For most people, I think another impact is the lack of access to certain types of medicine or treatment. There is no access to certain types of food and so on.

UN News: What is daily life like for the average family?

James Heenan: It really depends on your status in society, your Songbun, as they call it, whether you – basically – belong to the loyal class, the wavering class, or the hostile class.

For everyone, there is a very high level of supervision from an early age, both at home, at work and at school. You run the risk of a Government working group arriving home at any time of the day or night to check electronic equipment for prohibited information.

Food has always been a problem in the DPRK. Everyone we spoke to had talked about hunger.

We’ve had a lot of people tell us that one of the ways they realized something was different overseas was when they fled to China and saw everyone eating white rice. White rice is a luxury item in the DPRK.

I think forced labor is also a part of everyone’s life. You have mobilization. They call them shock brigades, where the public is basically required to provide free labor for public works.

You may be sent for days, weeks, months or even years to work on difficult projects without pay. This was classic forced labor and affected the entire country.

In many places, school children are sent to the fields, especially during harvest time, to work. Our information and analysis shows that this is a form of forced labor involving children.

UN News: Harvest reported to be good. Why are there still concerns about food?

James Heenan: There was a drought at the beginning of this year, but the harvest was fine.

Coupled with a production and distribution system that has not been reformed, we will quickly be trapped in a situation that may not be starvation, but certainly involves widespread nutritional problems in society.

During COVID, we saw hunger. We saw people starving to death. It’s not as bad as it was in the 1990s, but it still happens.

UN News: The government has emphasized economic development. Does this bring relief?

James Heenan: Its flagship programs include things like the 20-by-10 project, which is building factories in 20 regions every year for 10 years. You also see a large amount of hospital construction.

This is accepted. Evidence based on experience shows that this creates more jobs for people, and paid jobs. There is always work, but traditionally it often doesn’t pay anything.

The challenge is that we don’t know exactly what impact it will have on society because we can’t come to the country to monitor it.

We are concerned because we know from a wealth of historical evidence that many of these large infrastructure projects can involve forced labor during construction.

UN News: What happens to digital technology?

James Heenan: Our latest report looks at thousands of 3G telephone masts across the country. There are more than 20 types of smartphones available in the DPRK.

But the problem is that all of this is in a limited environment, meaning there is no internet access. This is clearly also used to, if not improve supervision, at least make supervision more efficient. So, technology is like a two-sided coin.

At the same time, we know that people are very happy to be able to use their phones for mobile banking, which is now widely used in the DPRK.

UN News: What is your biggest concern right now?

James Heenan: I think I should say that there are real concerns about isolation and restrictions on people’s ability to move freely.

People can’t go in and out of the country, even illegally, this has always been a kind of pressure that allows people to go to China, for example, to earn money and come back. That’s not even possible anymore.

If I may add a second concern, this is a separate family matter. We still have many families separated between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea, and to some extent Japan as a result of forced disappearances carried out by the DPRK in the past.

The families are getting older. Hundreds or thousands of family members have died over the years because of this long-standing problem.

The survivors are elderly people, and we encourage progress in these countries, for no other reason than as a confidence-building measure that allows these families to meet.

This is something that happened until 2018, and we are pushing for it to happen again.

UN News: Is there anything else you would like to emphasize?

James Heenan: I think the situation in the DPRK is one where people sometimes think that things won’t change, but in fact they haven’t.

The country is involved with the UN. It is involved in human rights issues. That way, the situation there should not be forgotten.

We cannot only talk about the Korean Peninsula in terms of peace and security. We must also remember the human rights dimension that is the focus of the UN.