Lack of Human Rights in North Korea

Lack of Human Rights in North Korea

 Every single action that occurs in our modern world is a reaction of a world before us. To understand the ways of North Korea’s present regime, the country’s past must be understood in detail. The Korean Peninsula, originally unified under the Joseon Dynasty (1392 - 1910), shared the same language and culture for centuries.  After the Japanese conquered the Korean Peninsula, the population’s perception was shaped. From this date, until 1945, Korea was a Japanese colony. After World War II ended in 1945, the Allied Powers took over the administration of Japan's occupied territories, including Korea, dividing the peninsula in two different structures. The Americans empowered the south, while the Russians, supported by China, commenced a communist regime in the northern half of the country (Oh, Kong Dan., and Ralph, C. Hassig).

Ever since these events took place in history, Korea operates in two distinct governmental systems: the communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, short for North Korea, and the Republic of Korea, known as South Korea. Even though the country’s official name suggests a functioning democratic system, the following information clearly shows that this is not the case. In North Korea, Pyongyang became the nation's capital and its largest city, with a population of 2.5 million people. The capital offers great opportunities, but most of the people who live outside the borderlines of the capital are forced into different forms of slavery, almost immediately after being born. They are born into a life that knows no freedom. 


For example, in North Korea, it is illegal for the people to leave the country without the regime's permission. The regime's authority is a dictatorship and the population has learned to live with the fear that results from this absolute control. Their goal is to restrict the people’s decision-making and movement, even in their own country. Most of their laws are completely inhumane and if any citizen dares to go against the system, they suffer consequences as severe as public execution, disappearance of family members, or tortures in political prison camps. There is no free media allowed in the country, since the only opinion that can be produced for the public is the regimes. Citizens have been executed for simply watching Hollywood movies, because they have created a monopoly where even “Wi-Fi” is illegal, and owning a tunable radio is completely prohibited. “Measurements of the health of a country provide a stark contrast between the two systems.   South Korean men have a life expectancy of 76.67 years, women 83.13, while North Korean men have a life expectancy of 65.96 years and women 73.86 years.  The most revealing contrast is the infant mortality rate, the number of infants that have died within a year of their birth.  In South Korea this figure is 3.93 per one thousand births, while in North Korea this figure is 24.5 per one thousand births.  Years of living under communism have even stunted the growth of the North Korean people” (Scholte 2014). It is extremely important to raise awareness of this reality, to further expose the truth behind the lack of human rights in this regime.

Works Cited 

•  Scholte, Suzanne. "North Korea Under Communism 1948-2014." Victims of       Communism. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2016. 

http://victimsofcommunism.org/north-korea-under-communism-1948-2014/

• Oh, Kong Dan., and Ralph, C. Hassig. North Korea through the Looking Glass. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000. Print.