SEX SLAVES IN CHINA

HatTip to Mingi. Even though I read stories about this every few months, it still disturbs me everything.

The women who flee North Korea believe nothing could be worse than their dictatorship's famine and labour camps.

But many change their minds after they cross the Tumen River into the "safety" of China, smuggled by middlemen who promise safe passage.

"I was locked into a house and raped every night," said Kim Chun-ae, a matronly 51-year-old. "My teenage daughter was sold three times by traffickers. She was 'recycled'."

Mrs Kim is lucky. After five years of imprisonment in labour camps and a man's bedroom she finally made it to South Korea.

She left behind tens of thousands of women who made the same leap of faith only to end up in China.

South Korean charities say between 100,000 and 300,000 people have escaped North Korea in the nine years since famine swept Kim Jong-il's impoverished regime, killing two million. Most are still hiding in northern China, terrified of his infamous camps. Aid workers say between 70 and 90 per cent of women defectors have been sold for sex. (full article)