Most accusations of abduction are at North Korea, not from it, but rights official says he must get truth about 12 women's fate
SEOUL, South Korea — The United Nations’ independent investigator on human rights in North Korea said Thursday he plans to examine North Korean claims that South Korea abducted 12 North Korean women.
Tomas Ojea Quintana said he raised the issue in a meeting with South Korea’s vice foreign minister and requested that his government set up a meeting with the women, who had worked at a North Korean-run restaurant in China before coming to the South in April last year.
While North Korea regularly accuses South Korea of abducting or enticing its citizens to defect, Quintana said he was obliged to look into the case because his office has been gathering what seemed to be conflicting accounts of what happened. He didn’t elaborate on the accounts.
He said he needed to be « exactly precise » about the women’s situation and whether they decided to come to South Korea « according to their own will. »
« Parents of these women living in North Korea are claiming that their daughters were abducted, so all these factors oblige me to pay attention to the case and understand exactly what happened, » Quintana said at a news conference in Seoul as he wrapped up a four-day visit to South Korea.
In response to Quintana’s comments, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the government had « sufficiently confirmed » the workers’ « free will » in escaping from North Korea and resettling in the South.
