National Human Rights Commission to investigate whether 12 restaurant workers were brought to South against their will
South Korea’s human rights watchdog is to investigate whether 12 North Korean restaurant workers were brought to the country against their will by their manager, the latest twist in a mass defection dogged by controversy.
The move by Seoul’s National Human Rights Commission comes less than a month after a United Nations official called for an investigation, saying some of the women were deceived into travelling to the South.
The 12 women arrived in South Korea with their manager, Heo Kang-il, in April 2016 from Ningbo in eastern China in what was one of the most sensational defections by North Koreans in years.
But officials in Pyongyang cried foul, saying the women, who worked in a North Korean state-run restaurant, one of dozens in China, were kidnapped and demanded they be returned.
North Korea’s claims were given more weight in May when Heo said in an interview with local television station JTBC he had worked with South Korea’s intelligence service to “lure and kidnap” the women.
Three of the women were also quoted as saying they had not wanted to seek refuge in South Korea and wanted to return home. No one has managed to interview all 12, and they have been largely kept out of the public eye.
The controversy over their arrival has become an obstacle to warming ties between the two Koreas.
