Category: Middle East

North Korean authorities are scrambling to deter a rapid rise in prostitution in the country’s major cities as a dire economy pushes more women into the sex trade, sources inside the country said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered authorities to act to prevent prostitution from spreading in the reclusive and impoverished nation, a resident of the northeastern city of Chongjin in North Hamgyong province told RFA on Monday. The Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, which is the country’s main youth organization under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, are moving in cities such as Chongjin and Hamhung to stop young women from selling themselves. “The crackdown began when a central official in Pyongyang submitted a proposal after he saw some women propositioning men on the street for prostitution at night,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.   “Kim Jong Un signed onto the proposal of the official and ordered the Social Security Department and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League to take action,” he said. Though illegal, prostitution is generally tolerated in North Korea, with occasional crackdowns by local authorities looking to extract bribes from those they catch.  But North Korea’s economic paralysis due to the authoritarian regime’s extreme measures to battle the COVID-19 virus and the effects of ongoing international economic sanctions have left ordinary citizens under extreme financial distress. The Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League are jointly conducting intensive crackdowns on prostitution and providing ideological education for young people to ensure they adhere to socialist mores, the Chongjin resident said. The two organizations have mobilized day and night patrols to surveil places where the crime occurs, such as train stations and parks. Additionally, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League is increasing its ideological education for young people in an effort to deter them from selling their bodies for money, the resident said. On July 30, district-level organizations divided league members into groups and gathered them together for lectures, he said.  “Kim Jong Un’s message to reject decadent reactionary thought and culture and not get involved in antisocialism was delivered,” the source said. Also on July 30, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League held a meeting in Chingjin’s Sunam district to publicly criticize several young female prostitutes.  “The meeting was a form of public shaming, with each of the eight women on the stage revealing their names, ages, home addresses, and their jobs, and forcing them to criticize themselves. “More than half of the women caught in several intensive crackdowns are reportedly from other regions. It seems that women, whose lives have become difficult due to lockdown measures and movement control for three years, have been forced to engage in prostitution for themselves and their families,” he said.  Doing anything for money A resident of the city of Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA on Monday that local officials from the Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League were searching train stations, parks and streets for suspected prostitutes. “About 30 women were arrested on the first day of the crackdown around Hamhung Station, held jointly by the Ministry of Social Security and the Youth League last week,” said the source who declined to be named for safety reasons. Most of the women were in their 20s, but several were teenagers who were recent high school graduates, she said. Many women have become prostitutes due to financial hardship, and more and more of them are begging men to pay for sex as they wait for the train at Hamhung Station at night, the woman said. Some men arrange to use the services of prostitutes under the pretext of staying overnight while waiting for a train, she added. Prostitutes in Hamhung usually are paid 80,000-50,000 won (U.S. $11.40-$21.40) for their services, though some women at the train station get as little as 30,000 won (U.S. $4.30), she said.  “Even during daylight, I often see women roaming around crowded places like train stations for prostitution,” the second source said. “Most of the women who go into prostitution are people in need, but there are cases where this is not the case,” the resident said.  “As our society gradually transforms into a society where anything is possible with money, the interest in earning money is growing,” she added. “I am worried that there is a growing tendency among residents who do not hesitate to do anything for money.” In August 2020, RFA reported that more than 50 female students of two prominent Pyongyang performing arts colleges were sent to a labor camp for their alleged involvement in a prostitution ring that catered to the capital city’s elites. Many of the young women were driven into prostitution by poverty brought on by endless demands from their highly selective schools for fees, North Korean sources said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. 

A prominent Uyghur poet and associate professor at a teacher’s college was detained in 2017 as a “threat to social stability” and sentenced to 13 years in prison on a “separatism” charge, a local police officer and Uyghur source told RFA. Ablet Abdureshid Berqi is serving time in Tumshuq Prison, a detention facility located in Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).  Since its founding in 1954, the XPCC, which is also known as Bingtuan, has built and administered several urban centers in Xinjiang, mainly to resettle Han Chinese from other parts of the country as part of a campaign of Sinicization. The Bingtuan also operates prisons and publicly traded companies.  An RFA investigation confirmed that Berqi, which is a pseudonym, was arrested two years ago amid a purge of Uyghur intellectuals, educators and cultural leaders — one of a set of Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and the parliaments of some Western countries as constituting genocide. The abuses also include forced labor at factories and farms, forced birth control and the detention of up to 1.8 million Uyghurs in a network of internment camps. A Chinese official at the Xinjiang Education Institute, a university for teacher education in the XUAR’s capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) where Berqi worked, told RFA that he was not authorized to disclose information about Berqi and suggested the reporter contact the school administration office.  “I don’t know this person,” the official said. “I haven’t heard of this person. We have more than 1,000 employees at the school. Let me give you a phone number. You ask the school administration office.” Other officials at the institute refused to provide information about Berqi, however. Later, officials at the directorate of school education told RFA that the institute did not employ an instructor named Berqi. RFA also contacted a police officer in the poet’s hometown of Sampul village in southern Xinjiang’s Hotan (Hetian) prefecture, who confirmed that he was serving a 13-year term in Tumshuq Prison. “He is in prison now,” the police officer said. “The reasons were threats to social stability and going abroad. He was detained in 2017, and after three months he was sentenced to prison for 13 years and is now serving his term in Tumshuq Prison.” The officer also pointed to “mistakes he made while teaching at school,” including articles Berqi wrote and lectures he gave. Berqi’s parents live in the village’s Aydingkol hamlet, the officer said.  A top target In an article published in the 2000s, Berqi said he used a pseudonym because his real name was the same as the XUAR chairman, Ablet Abdureshid, which led to a number of misunderstandings, particularly after the poet’s writings were published in newspapers and magazines.  He also said the pseudonym, which means “flourishing” in the Uyghur language, reflected the greater success he hoped to achieve in his creative career. Berqi wrote his doctoral dissertation on Abduhalik Uyghur, a prominent Uyghur revolutionary poet in the early 20th century who was killed by Sheng Shicai, a Chinese militarist who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944.  Berqi also studied at Haifa University in Israel between 2014 and 2016, said Nimrod Baranovitch, a lecturer in Chinese culture and society at the university, who met the poet in Urumqi a decade earlier and later applied for a postdoctoral fellowship for him. “[W]e kept in contact for many years, and then we decided we should try to bring him over to study and research here,” Baranovitch told RFA. “We had tried that once in the past, but it didn’t work. And then we tried it again, and it worked.” Two years ago, authorities charged Berqi with “separatism” and sentenced him to 13 years in prison because of articles he wrote on economic awareness and development in the XUAR, which were published in the CCP-controlled Xinjiang Civilization magazine, according to information from an RFA listener. The last official mention of his name was on Jan. 5, 2017, in a notice issued by the Xinjiang Education Institute’s publicity department. It said that the research topics officially approved by the Chinese government included a project by Berqi relating to the stability of Xinjiang. At the end of 2017, Berqi’s name was on a list of Uyghur intellectuals who had been imprisoned, but due to the Chinese government’s tight control over information, it was only five years later, in July 2022, RFA learned about his sentencing. Husenjan, one of the Berqi’s colleagues who now resides abroad, said he received was told by sources in Urumqi that Berqi had been sentenced to prison but did not know the length of his term. “I recently received official news that he was, in fact, detained, but I wasn’t able to get information on whether or how long he was sentenced to prison,” he said. As a writer and intellectual, Berqi would have been a top target for authorities amid the ongoing repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Husenjan said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.