Forced Abortions in North Korea

• The Unforgivable Sin: Mixed Heritage In the eyes of the North Korean regime, a child conceived with a Chinese father represents a stain on the nation's "pure bloodline". This deeply ingrained prejudice results in one of the most heinous human rights violations: the forced abortion of these innocent lives.
  
  The issue of forced abortion was found to be a serious problem in the human rights of pregnant women after forced repatriation. Among the pregnant North Korean women who were repatriated, those who were pregnant with a South Korean man's child forcibly disappeared, while those who were pregnant with a Chinese man's child were unconditionally aborted if the father was Han Chinese, but left alone if the father was ethnic Korean-Chinese.

  
  

• The Brutal Procedure: Pain Beyond Words Repatriated pregnant women are not given the dignity or medical care they deserve. Instead, they are subjected to brutal, unsanitary, and inhumane procedures. Without anesthesia, the agony they endure is unimaginable, but the emotional and psychological scars run even deeper.

  
  

• A Mother's Nightmare: Reliving the Trauma One mother recounts the horrors of March 20th, the day her unborn child was ruthlessly taken from her. Not only was the procedure excruciatingly painful, but she was also forced to witness the lifeless form of her baby boy. This traumatic event is a recurring nightmare that haunts her every year on that fateful date.

  
  

• An Endless Cycle of Grief For these women, the trauma of their forced abortions doesn't end with the procedure. The memory of that day, the pain, and the loss persist, casting a shadow over their lives. Their testimonies shed light on the deep-seated cruelty of the North Korean regime and the need for global intervention.

The case of a North Korean woman who was trafficked at the age of 14 to a Chinese man 20 years older and was forcibly raped and assaulted just one month after her first period, gave birth at the age of 15. She was repatriated three years later with a baby in her belly on the report of her Chinese family. She was forced to have an abortion after being repatriated, and was forced to perform forced labor for three years before being re-trafficked and sold to another Chinese man.

Moreover, it is the Chinese government's policy of forcibly aborting North Korean women who are pregnant with Chinese children in China and forcibly repatriating pregnant women to North Korea that creates the conditions for forced abortions in North Korea.