North Korean Forced Abortions

[Gray Fox]

By Seinfeldrules:

I dont think anybody really knows the truth, nothing ever comes out of the country because it is run with an iron fist by a complete psycho. The outrageous propoganda that their media runs is quite humorous to me, but it is scary in the context that it is the only news source NKoreans can watch or listen to. Some of you think FoxNews and Al Jazeera is bad...
Has everyone seen the picture of NK at night when compared to the surrounding countries?

yes

By Blink:

Hmm.. at least back up your arguments with evidence/some kind of reason, other wise theres no point in posting.

Don't have any evidance, all i know is what I have watched on documentaries, now the most shocking was one of bbc, where they had a former head of a concetrationcamp who now happily lives in south korea tell the story. And a couple of former prisoners.

they told this:

saw in a bbc documentary, that when a baby is born that the officers step on the baby before the mother untill they crush it, and that one guard killed a mother he got pregnant by cutting her stomach and letting her and the baby bleed, plus you have one of the heads of a camp living in South Korea, who said what he did, he says he killed everyday peopel just out of bordem, he just realized they were humans once he put a whole afamily in achamer which the yfilled with gas, and the father and the mother tried saving their breath and giving it to their children so they don't die, but anyway this is nothing new.

+

Jesus freaking christ now eevn you, of all the people here you are supposed to know that it is. Dude they have a law there that says that when someoen did a crime, he and the next three generations, meaning his son and grandson are also punished for it, and that when someone commits a crime, everyone in the street is punished, although for them I think the three generations rule does not apply, exept if their son or grandson live in teh same street, and seeing how pore Nk is, that is probably the case, furtehrmore, even when the government is not killing people the corrupt military is, some official has only to not like you and he can do anything he wants.

That is why I assume it is systematical, I saw both those things in a bbbc documentary, now if the next 3 generations are also punished, well if that is true then it is systematical.

By Rakurai Tenjin:

Was quite commonplace in China and does take place still there but not at the level it did before. Similar governments, communist, similar cultures.

You are full of bullshit, first baby killing has nothing to do with communism, I mean like Stern quoted a lot, madam allbright even admits the US is responsible for the death of 500 000 children.
And secondly, China did not do this, they just had a rule that you could only have one child per household, if you were pregnant an abortion would be performed, not like in NK a living breathing allredy born child beeing killed. Chine was very smart to do it, if they didn't they would suffer like many african countries form over population, it would be a total disaster, there would be much honger and millions would die, but it is true that parents themselfes sometimes kill a child if it is female, or abort it, although china has now a law that prohibits abortion of a female child.

 

[bliink]

You are full of bullshit

Lets be a bit more civil, yeah?

 

[The Monkey]

Has everyone seen the picture of NK at night when compared to the surrounding countries?

You mean this one? http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm
Here's one of the whole world: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg

 

[seinfeldrules]

You mean this one? http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm
Here's one of the whole world: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg

Yeah thats the one. Like they say, a picture speaks a 1000 words.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

You are full of bullshit, first baby killing has nothing to do with communism, I mean like Stern quoted a lot, madam allbright even admits the US is responsible for the death of 500 000 children.
And secondly, China did not do this, they just had a rule that you could only have one child per household, if you were pregnant an abortion would be performed, not like in NK a living breathing allredy born child beeing killed. Chine was very smart to do it, if they didn't they would suffer like many african countries form over population, it would be a total disaster, there would be much honger and millions would die, but it is true that parents themselfes sometimes kill a child if it is female, or abort it, although china has now a law that prohibits abortion of a female child.

Forced abortion, yes, China did do this. China was not 'smart to do this.' It was sickening and a result of the nation's poverty (resulting in overcrowded cities since they are the sources of wealth and work) due to their communism.

Both governments are very similar, both have a long running record of extreme, DIRECT human rights abuses. North Korea being the more extreme of the two.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

madam allbright even admits the US is responsible for the death of 500 000 children.

Still a vague misinterpretation; and nothing is going to change either sides idea on what has happened.

 

[Nofuture]

Forced abortion, yes, China did do this. China was not 'smart to do this.' It was sickening and a result of the nation's poverty (resulting in overcrowded cities since they are the sources of wealth and work) due to their communism.

Both governments are very similar, both have a long running record of extreme, DIRECT human rights abuses. North Korea being the more extreme of the two.

Yes, it looks like it happens in China too:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,44751,00.html

Last year, witnesses from China told the U.S. Senate Committee on Human Rights about the brutal and unsanitary coerced abortions in China and how pregnant women fled into hiding.

"Once I found a woman who was nine-months pregnant, but did not have a birth-allowed certificate. According to the policy, she was forced to undergo an abortion surgery," Gao Xiaoduan, former family planning officer with the Chinese government, testified in tears before the U.S. House of Representatives. The baby was born alive, its lips sucking, its limbs stretching, Xiaoduan said. "A physician injected poison into its skull, and the child died, and it was thrown into the trash can."

If it´s true, it´s a crime, isn´t it?.


On the other hand I´ve read, that in 2050 the world´s population will double, if no measures will be taken (naturaly I don´t mean by measures forcing abortions or killing babies), the population will double from 6 billion people to 12.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/06/99/world_population/379083.stm

I really don´t undestand parents who allready have one child and knowing that´s not allowed, want to get more.

RakuraiTenjin, it do was very smart to do family planning in China, even if one can´t agree with some methods of implementation:

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm
One-Child Policy
Throughout the 1970s there was increasing evidence of inexorable increases that propelled population planners and politicians to attempt to bring about a drastic reduction of family size and slow increases. What emerged was the one child policy, a policy that has been both successful in statistical terms and controversial in terms of its implementation. The implementation of the policy was especially harsh in the early 1980s, notorious because of forced abortions, infanticide, and strict penalties. :angry:
While the one child policy is widely carried out in China's cities, it has been more flexibly enforced in rural areas and in those portions of the country heavily populated by ethnic minority groups. Throughout the rural areas two and three children per couple are common; here also there is increased awareness of the need for population planning and a general willingness to have fewer children than was common in China in the past. Contraception is widely practiced throughout China in order to reduce pregnancies and widen the spacing between births. In many cases the so-called one-child policy can be best stated today as "One is best, two at most, but never a third."

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm

Magnitude and Growth. As the world's population surpassed 6 billion (6,000,000,000) in October 1999, China's population represented more than 1/5 of this total (20.8%)--one out of every five people in the world lives in China. Today, China's population exceeds 1.25 billion (1,250,000,000), a number that continues to increase minute-by-minute on Beijing's official Ticking Population Clock
China's population increases each year by approximately 12-13 million people, a number that exceeds the total population of individual countries such as Belgium, Greece, Cambodia, or Ecuador. Annual population growth in China actually exceeds the current population of Ohio, Illinois, or Pennsylvania.

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_1.htm
The number of young adults of reproductive age (20 - 50) will reach its maximum of more than 660 million around 2010. This explains why the period between 1995 and 2025 (shaded light blue) is the most critical for the country's future population growth. Only if average fertility remains low among this large cohort, will it be possible to stabilize the number of births. Otherwise, the large number of parents will produce another baby boom in China.

http://www.medizin-ethik.ch/publik/family_planning.htm



Btw, there is a contrary trend in Europe ;( :

Population to fall 100m in 50 years
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1381238,00.html

 

[Gray Fox]

By Nofutur

Quote:
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm
One-Child Policy
Throughout the 1970s there was increasing evidence of inexorable increases that propelled population planners and politicians to attempt to bring about a drastic reduction of family size and slow increases. What emerged was the one child policy, a policy that has been both successful in statistical terms and controversial in terms of its implementation. The implementation of the policy was especially harsh in the early 1980s, notorious because of forced abortions, infanticide, and strict penalties.
While the one child policy is widely carried out in China's cities, it has been more flexibly enforced in rural areas and in those portions of the country heavily populated by ethnic minority groups. Throughout the rural areas two and three children per couple are common; here also there is increased awareness of the need for population planning and a general willingness to have fewer children than was common in China in the past. Contraception is widely practiced throughout China in order to reduce pregnancies and widen the spacing between births. In many cases the so-called one-child policy can be best stated today as "One is best, two at most, but never a third."

From what I know it is the parents that kill the child if it female, or if the government finds out, the parents have to go to jail or flee the country, but if infanticide( not abortion, thats is a different thing) was commited systemathicly on a large scale like in NK, then I take my words back. But once agan this is infanticidse not abortion, and it´s despicable that RakuraiTenjin is trying to draw a paralell between them.

By Kerberos

Still a vague misinterpretation; and nothing is going to change either sides idea on what has happened.

There is nothing vagua about it, he is saying that a communistic regime killed thise baby´s becasue it is a communistic regime, I´m just trying to prove that communist or kapitalist has nothing to do with infanticide.

 

[Nofuture]

Resuming:

1. There had (or have?) been both, forced abortions and infanticide, in both countries, NK and China.

2. There had (or have?) been a lot of female infanticides in China.


I propose to discuss following questions:


1. Were or are the forced abortions/infanticides done systematically?

2. Why was or is this being done? (the wrong implementation of familiy planning policy, prisoners, food insufficiency? etc.)


The thread is about NK, but I think, it´s worth to discuss the situation in both countries. One aspect why:

"In 2000 and 2001, China deported thousands of North Korean refugees, with many ending up in North Korean prison camps. People who later managed to escape again, to China and South Korea, say that prisoners discovered to be pregnant were routinely forced to have abortions. If babies were born alive, they say, guards forced prisoners to kill them."

 

[GhostFox]

China used to use "abortions" (often the child was killed after birth, so it's not really an abortion) as a means of population control. Men were seen as valuable, woman as worthless (and gave birth to more children, also a bad thing). So female children were killed at a rate many times that of male children. In some parts of China there are as many as 10 men for every woman. The demographics are so out of hand that the govt. finally stepped in to try to fix it, although it is really too late. In 10 years you will have millions of men with no available woman. It will be an adult gender disparity never before seen in human history. No one knows what the result will be.

As to NK, it's hard to know anything. The govt. controlls everything with an iron fist. Remember the big train explosion? The govt. immediately cut all international phone lines, and cell phones are illegal. To this day no one outside of NK knows what really happened and the true death toll. It's somewhat reminicent of the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China where the death toll is only an estimate (655,000) because the govt. prevented the release of any information about it. I would not be surprised in the slightest if the forced abortions were systematic in NK, but by the same token I don't think we can ever really know how widespread they are. There could 100 a day and it would be entierly possible that we would know nothing of it.

 

[Nofuture]

As to NK, it's hard to know anything. The govt. controlls everything with an iron fist. Remember the big train explosion? The govt. immediately cut all international phone lines, and cell phones are illegal. To this day no one outside of NK knows what really happened and the true death toll. It's somewhat reminicent of the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China where the death toll is only an estimate (655,000) because the govt. prevented the release of any information about it. I would not be surprised in the slightest if the forced abortions were systematic in NK, but by the same token I don't think we can ever really know how widespread they are. There could 100 a day and it would be entierly possible that we would know nothing of it.

How does it come, that I agree with you?

I found some information about NK. It seems to be for sure that there were (or are) systematic forced abortions of prisoners and prison babies were (or are) systematically killed. Brrrrrrrrr…. ;( :angry: :


UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women:
http://www.hrwf.net/Special_Report.pdf

“In prison or during interrogations, women are reportedly subjected to several methods of torture, including the insertion of objects into the vagina. Women who have become pregnant in China are especially targeted in detention, and are forced to undergo abortions.” (page 4)


Death, terror in North Korea gulag (NBC)
http://www.hrwf.net/html/Humanexperimentation.pdf

“It´s one of the worst, if not the worst situation – human rights abuse situation – in the world today”

“Among NBC News’ findings:
…
Forced abortions are carried out on pregnant women so another generation of political dissidents will be “eradicated".
Inmates are used as human guinea pigs for testing biological and chemical agents, according to both former inmates and U.S. officials”.


Long-standing practices of baby-killing in the camps of North Korea. Accounts by eye-witnesses
http://www.hrwf.net/html/nk_press_services_jan_8_2002.html

“2. Babies killing found to be a standard practice in North Korean camps
The system of concentration camps in North Korea has a political purpose: to silence the slightest expressions of dissent by using torture, terror, forced confessions, and executions.

The ultimate epitome of the highest level of dehumanisation reigning in the concentration camps of North Korea are the reports of compulsory abortion, disappearance of newborn children and the systematic killings of babies by the North Korean authorities in the presence of their mothers. Unborn and newly-born babies are not spared the qualification of being "enemies of state" as their mothers are North Korean defectors who have been repatriated to North Korea against their will. The a priori incrimination of unborn babies transpires in the words of a guard in Yodok camp (point 7 on the map of concentration camps below) who admonished a pregnant woman, "How can a counter-revolutionary and an enemy of the people such as yourself dare to bear a child?"
The first reports of infanticide committed by North Korean authorities were provided independently by two former North Korean prisoners and two former concentration camp guards in 1995 and 1996. However, their witness accounts were considered too shocking to be true or just isolated cases.
During the first half of 2000, the Chinese authorities cracked down on the North Korean defectors hiding in China, with particular emphasis on women, under the excuse of stopping human trafficking. As a result, thousands of North Korean women, some of them already happily married in China, were arrested and handed over to North Korea against their will, including many pregnant women.
Throughout 2000-2001, several new reports and interviews provided details in different ways and for different locations in North Korea. All accounts certainly converged on the fact that North Korean authorities carry out systematic killings of babies. Thus the notion of infanticide in North Korea as an isolated incident was dismissed.
Human Rights Without Frontiers has collected the testimonies of some 20 eye-witnesses giving accounts of a long-standing practice spanning decades. We have checked and cross-checked their accounts with the view of outlining some repetitive patterns with regard to location and methods.”


Defectors from North Korea tell of prison baby killings

http://www.hrwf.net/html/nk_press_services_jun_12_2002.html

China's deportations of thousands of illegal migrants from North Korean in recent years has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of pregnant women ending up in North Korean prisons. Defectors, male and female, are reviled as traitors and counterrevolutionaries when they are returned to North Korea. But women who have become pregnant, especially by Chinese men, face special abuse.

"Several hundred babies were killed last year in North Korean prisons," said Willy Fautre, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, a private group based in Brussels. Mr. Fautre said that over the last 18 months, he and his volunteers had interviewed 35 recent escapees from North Korean camps.

Of the 35, he said, 31 said they had witnessed babies killed by abandonment or being smothered with plastic sheets. Two defectors later described burying dead babies, and two said they were mothers who saw their newborns put to death.

"This is a systematic procedure carried out by guards, and the people in charge of the prisons — these are not isolated cases," Mr. Fautre said in a telephone interview. "The pattern is to identify women who are pregnant, so the camp authorities can get rid of the babies through forced abortion, torture or very hard labor. If they give birth to a baby alive, the general policy is to let the baby die or to help the baby die with a plastic sheet."


Forced to help kill babies
http://www.hrwf.net/html/nk_bk_article1p1.html


Btw, "HRWF (Human Rights Without Frontiers) is independent of all political, ideological or religious movements. Its object is to promote democracy, the rule of law and the rights of the individual - man, woman and child - everywhere in the world, by every appropriate means. Nobody carrying out a political mandate (including representing a political party in exile) or being a cleric can be a member of the board of directors."

 

[K e r b e r o s]

How does it come, that I agree with you?

How does it go, when I disagree with you?

 

[seinfeldrules]

That report is disgusting.

 

[Nofuture]

How does it go, when I disagree with you?

Back on topic, Kerberos.
You haven´t anything a bit valuable to present about this topic, have you?