DPRK Delegate Urges Japan, S. Korea to Apologize for Their Crimes

    Pyongyang, March 22 (KCNA) -- The DPRK delegate, who took part in the 61st Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women held at the UN headquarters, made a speech in general discussion under agenda item 3: Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the 23rd Special Session of the UN General Assembly.
    The delegate said that women in the DPRK are now taking an active part in state and social activities and making great contributions to the social development, adding: The DPRK government will continue cooperation with the international community to strengthen gender equality and women's empowerment in the future, too.
    He called the attention to the sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army and the abduction of 12 DPRK women citizens by the south Korean authorities, the recognized two international crimes against humanity and women which are being subjects of denunciation.
    He went on:
    The Japanese government, during its occupation of Korea, committed the unprecedented extra large-scale crime against humanity. It abducted, drafted and forced Korean women and girls to be sex slaves for the Japanese military, but it has never made official apology and compensation to date.
    The DPRK once again strongly urges Japanese government not to try to deceive the world by speaking out "women's rights" and "peace", but honestly accept the legal responsibility for its past crimes of the Japanese military's sexual slavery of 200 000 Korean women and girls, forcible drafting of 8.4 million Koreans and the genocidal massacre of more than 1 million Korean people, and make official apology and compensation, as well.
    The south Korean authorities, obsessed with confrontation with fellow countrymen, cruelly have violated dignity and human rights of women, while behaving differently in the UN.
    Early April 2016, shortly after the 60th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women held at the UN headquarters on March, they allured and stealthily abducted more than 10 DPRK women citizens in daylight in Zhejiang province of China and took them to south Korea. They also still detain Kim Ryon Hui, a DPRK woman citizen, who was deceived to be drafted to south Korea in 2011.
    The DPRK government, the girls' parents and Kim Ryon Hui's family strongly and repeatedly have requested the south Korean authorities and UN human rights bodies and the United Nations to take prompt measures for their immediate and safe repatriation home, but no reply and steps been taken so far.
    The DPRK calls on the UN Commission on the Status of Women and all UN member nations to condemn the allured abduction and forcible detainment of the woman and girls as outrageous human rights violation, crimes against humanity and breach of the UN Charter and to cooperate in its efforts for their return to homeland without further delay. -0