This news is presented in the hopes that you will tell someone else what is going on in North Korea and, if God touches your heart, pray for these precious families.

Inside News, June 2009

I am pleased to report that several North Korean women were just rescued from sex trafficking after their escape into China. They are in the hands of Christians who will love them and share truth with them. Americans are donating, praying, and volunteering in this endeavor. If you want to be a part of these rescues email me at northkorea@comcast.net



National Geographic Online Report
February, 2009
Please click the link below to hear this revealing report on sex trafficking in China and the Christians who help the North Korean women get out of North Korea and China through the underground railroad.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/02/north-korea/oneill-text



North Korean children exploited by state: report
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea forcibly mobilizes its children as cheap labor, diverts their food aid and throws minors into detention centers because their parents have run afoul of the law, human rights groups said in a report.
The North's failing school system has led to an increase in drop-outs and illiteracy in the impoverished state, according to the report, obtained on Monday, from the Seoul-based Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights and The Asia Center for Human Rights.

"Child labor and economic exploitation have become widely spread and a customary practice accompanying the worsening economic hardship of the country," said their "Situation Report on the Rights of the Child in the DPRK (North Korea)."

Children in the poorest parts of the destitute state face the greatest difficulty in obtaining an education. The few textbooks available in their schools are usually works celebrating the North's communist party and leaders, it said.
Children are often sent out to work at farms and factories or to scrounge for materials such as tin and wood that can be used by the state's powerful military or sold by local authorities, said the report, based on interviews with about 50 defectors.

"Consequently, it seems illiteracy rates have increased and the overall level of academic achievement in North Korean youth has decreased in most areas except for Pyongyang and a handful of other areas," it said.
International aid agencies who try to feed the neediest people in the country of about 23 million have placed numerous checks to make sure their food reaches its intended destinations, but the report said children can still easily miss out.
It said teachers in poor provinces, who are supposed to help distribute the food, instead sell it to students or merchants and that part of the aid is also diverted to children of the privileged class in the capital of Pyongyang and the military.

Those who remain in school were forced into two years of quasi-military service from the age of 14 in the "Red Young Guards" that takes them away from studies for several months.

The United States, European Union and others have criticized North Korea for having one of the worst human rights records on the planet, saying the reclusive state uses guilt by association to imprison relatives of those the North sends to its vast network of political prisons.

The report said the children of those imprisoned are forcibly put in custody and sent to facilities where they are "deprived of a basic education, forced to child labor and restricted of freedom."
The report noted some improvements in the condition of children, such as a North Korea cutting down on its use of torture of minors suspected of criminal offenses and easing penalties on children caught trying to escape the state.
The North has also increased its childhood vaccinations.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)



March 2008, North Korean College Students Arrested With Christian Literature North Korea (MNN) -- The United Nations is voting on a resolution critical of human rights abuses in North Korea. Among those abuses is religious persecution targeting Christians and those involved in Christian work. It's timely, considering the latest, says Voice of the Martyrs' Todd Nettleton. "Ten college students in one of the northern provinces of North Korea have been arrested by the National Security Agency. They apparently were caught reading the Bible and watching a Christian DVD. Because of that, they were all taken into custody. Their situation is very grim." The man who reported the case has since escaped to China to avoid arrest. Nettleton urges prayer. "What we can do now is pray. That is really all we can do. The North Korean government is almost immune to international pressure. So our option, at this point, on behalf of these brothers and sisters who have been arrested, is simply to go to the Lord, to pray for their safety, to pray for justice for them, and pray that their lives would be spared." Full story: http://www.MNNonline.org/article/11055


March 2008, North Korea Executes 22 fishermen who strayed into South Korean waters by mistake
News » World news
By RICHARD SHEARS-

North Korea has executed 22 fishermen who strayed out of the country's waters by mistake, it was claimed yesterday. The group were apparently gunned down once they returned to the Stalinist state.

Having drifted into South Korean territory, they had the opportunity to seek asylum, but insisted they never had any intention of doing so. They told South Korean officials they had strayed accidentally while fishing for clams and oysters, so were sent back to North Korea - and to their deaths. Scroll down to read more ...

Secretive: North Korea, whose citizens worship deceased leader Kim Il-Sung, above, reportedly killed 22 fishermen for straying into South Korean waters by gunning them down

A South Korean newspaper reported yesterday that all the drifters were immediately shot dead in a secret location by agents of North Korea's national security agency.

It was another alleged incident supporting claims that North Korea has a "no tolerance" policy against anyone suspected of trying to leave the country - even in error.

The drama began when two North Korean fishing boats containing 14 women and eight men - among them three teenagers - drifted into waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong island.

South Korean officials, suspecting at first that the group were intending to defect, questioned them about their plans and were told they had accidentally strayed out of North Korean waters.

There were a large number of women on the vessels, it was explained, because they were needed to clean the oysters and clams.

Satisfied with their story, the South Koreans seized the two boats and sent the group back across the border via an overland route.

Last night, a source with the South Korean national intelligence agency said: "We found the group were neither asylum seekers nor spies. "

They didn't want to stay in South Korea, so we sent them back. "We have heard that they were shot, but we had no idea that would happen."

A source with North Korean contacts added: "They weren't even given the option of going to a prison camp. They were simply executed."

An intelligence official said it was possible the fishing party were executed because they had set out on an expedition without authorisation from North Korea's maritime authorities.

He said if the group had indicated they were defectors, they would not have been sent back to North Korea. "It would be beyond imagination to repatriate a North Korean defector, given the country's poor human rights conditions," said the official.

Four North Koreans claimed asylum when their wooden boat drifted onto Yeonpyeong island last year.

Above news story taken from online website, Daily Mail at this website:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=522899&in_page_id=1811&ct=5


The first three pictures are from Chosun Journal Website.
You may link to their site at http://chosunjournal.com/visuals/










Born in Korean gulag, punished for no crime

By Jerome Taylor

Published: 20 June 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2679480.ece

For the first 22 years of his life Shin Dong Hyok's home address was Political Prison Camp No 14, Gaechon County, South Pyeongan Province, North Korea.

He grew up in unimaginable hardship in one of North Korea'skwanli-so, the gulag system built by Kim Il Sung in 1972 to work prisoners until they died.

His "crime" was to have been born to parents categorised by the regime as from the "hostile classes" - the 27 per cent of the population considered national enemies, impure elements and reactionaries. Under Kim Jong Il's "three generation" policy, the family members of anyone who commits a political crime are punished alongside the perpetrator, even if they have yet to be born.

Two years ago, Mr Shin did the unthinkable. He escaped from the labour camp of his birth, then from the world's most secretive and repressive state. Now he is trying to rebuild a new life in South Korea... (story continued on http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2679480.ece )