A resolution calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to dismantle its kwan-li-so political prison labor camp system, and for other purposes.

III 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. RES. 303 Calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to dismantle its kwan-li-so political prison labor camp system, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES AUGUST 1, 2019 Mr. HAWLEY (for himself, Ms. CORTEZ MASTO, Mr. GARDNER, Mr. VAN HOL- LEN, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. CORNYN, and Mrs. BLACKBURN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations RESOLUTION Calling upon the leadership of the Government of the Demo- cratic People’s Republic of Korea to dismantle its kwan- li-so political prison labor camp system, and for other purposes. Whereas the public has long been aware of the labor camp system in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea through continuous eye-witness and survivor accounts, and now publicly available satellite technology; Whereas, according to the Hidden Gulag IV report, the Gov- ernment of North Korea runs 2 kinds of prison camps, the kwan-li-so and the kyo-hwa-so, as well as ‘‘various types of short-term forced labour detention facilities’’; VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •SRES 303 IS Whereas the most heinous camps, the kwan-li-so, are known as Prison Camp 14, 15, 16, and 25, which contain rough- ly 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners; Whereas the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017, prepared by the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Associa- tion, states that ‘‘hundreds of thousands of inmates are estimated to have died’’ in the kwan-li-so camps; Whereas, from 1981 to 2013, an estimated 400,000 people out of 500,000 imprisoned were killed in these labor camps; Whereas persons who are sent to these labor camps are forc- ibly disappeared and intended to die, and the United Na- tions Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea wrote in 2014 that ‘‘the unspeakable atrocities’’ committed in the kwan- li-so camps ‘‘resemble the horrors of camps that totali- tarian states established during the twentieth century’’; Whereas the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea found that ‘‘the inmate population has been gradu- ally eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of repro- ductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abor- tion and infanticide’’; Whereas up to 3 generations of a ‘‘violator’s’’ family will be sent to the labor camps even if no ‘‘wrongdoing’’ is found; Whereas, according to the Inquiry on Crimes Against Hu- manity in North Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017, the Government of North Korea regularly and routinely VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 3 •SRES 303 IS commits crimes against humanity, including murder, ex- termination, enslavement, forcible transfer, imprison- ment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced dis- appearances, and other inhumane acts; Whereas, according to the best available evidence, some of the specific crimes identified by the Inquiry are as follows: (1) ‘‘Christians are heavily persecuted and receive especially harsh treatment in prison camps, with one former prison guard testifying that ‘Christians were reactionaries and there were lots of instructions . . . to wipe out the seed of reactionaries’ ’’. (2) Multiple witnesses watched prisoners tortured and killed on account of their religious affiliation. (3) A prisoner was raped by a security officer, after which the officer stuck a wooden stick inside her vagina and beat her lower body, resulting in her death within a week of the rape. (4) An abortion was induced by 3 men standing on a wooden plank placed on a pregnant prisoner’s stomach. (5) Another witness lost consciousness after endur- ing a beating designed to trigger premature labor, with prison officials killing her baby before she could regain consciousness. (6) Rape victims who feared being killed after be- coming pregnant engaged in self-induced abortions by eating dirt and poisoning themselves with flower roots. (7) Other rape victims self-induced abortions by in- serting a rubber tube in their vaginas. (8) Rape of teenage girls and their subsequent at- tempts to commit suicide by jumping in the Dae™dong- gang River were so common that prison guards were de- ployed to the river to thwart them. VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 4 •SRES 303 IS (9) Four pregnant women were executed for pro- testing the fact guards forced them to run down a moun- tain in a failed effort to induce miscarriages. (10) Twelve prisoners were shot and killed in the commotion that ensued after the execution of the 4 preg- nant women referenced in paragraph (9), and a former prison guard witnessed a prisoner’s newborn baby, most likely fathered by a high-ranking official, fed to guard dogs and killed. (11) Female prisoners suspected of being impreg- nated by non-Korean men (namely Chinese men) are sub- jected to especially harsh treatment, with one witness de- scribing a prisoner being injected with a labor-inducing drug and having to watch as a guard suffocated her new- born to death with a wet towel. (12) A former North Korean army nurse testified that she saw multiple abortions performed by injecting Ravenol (a motor oil) into the wombs of pregnant women and that babies born 3 to 4 months premature were ‘‘wrapped in newspapers and put in a bucket until bur- ied’’ behind the detention center. (13) Deliberate starvation, malnutrition, and over- work are extremely common, resulting in the deaths of countless prisoners. (14) At one prison camp, 1,500 to 2,000 prisoners, mostly children, are believed to have died each year from malnutrition, while many other prisoners were beaten to death for failing to meet production quotas. (15) Starving prisoners are regularly executed when caught scavenging for food. (16) At one prison camp, starving prisoners who were found digging up edible plants on a mountainside were shot to death. VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 5 •SRES 303 IS (17) At another camp, a witness saw a fellow inmate executed for stealing potatoes, while in a separate camp a witness described the execution of numerous prisoners caught scavenging for leftover food in prison guards’ quarters. (18) A prisoner was beaten to death for hiding sto- len corn in his mouth. (19) Public executions by firing squads or other means are common, especially for prisoners caught at- tempting to escape. (20) The existence of mass graves is well docu- mented, including detailed descriptions of mass burial sites at or near prison camps, as well as testimony about bodies being ‘‘dumped’’ on mountainsides near prison camps. (21) An undisclosed location near a prison camp was regularly used for nighttime executions, with gunshots clearly audible. (22) At a 1990 prison riot, approximately 1,500 prisoners were shot and killed, their bodies discarded in a closed mine. (23) In order to satisfy production quotas, in- mates—including teenagers—were forced to perform 15 to 16 hours of hard labor per day. (24) One witness was forced to perform hard labor (carrying logs) when he was 9 years old. (25) At one mine in particular, prisoners were forced to work 20 hours per day, with a witness testifying that approximately 200 prisoners died each year at that mine alone. (26) A soldier supervising a forced labor site at a political prison rolled a log down a steep mountainside, VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 6 •SRES 303 IS killing 10 prisoners as they were carrying logs up the mountain. (27) The bodies of some prisoners who died as a re- sult of forced labor or torture were thrown into the cells of prisoners in solitary confinement and later strung on barbed-wire fences where they were eaten by crows. (28) One witness described a torture chamber with blood and flesh on the walls and decaying corpses of past victims placed in the chamber in order to instill fear in the next prisoner. (29) Psychological abuse in political prisons is per- vasive, with gruesome acts, including executions, carried out in plain view of fellow prisoners in order to terrorize them. (30) Torture is a routine feature of life in political prisons, with a 2014 report by Amnesty International concluding that ‘‘North Korea’s prison camps are very possibly home to some of the most appalling torture in the world’’; Whereas officials of the Government of North Korea contin- ually deny the existence of the labor camps; Whereas the Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea Political Prisons Report of 2017 found that North Korea’s labor camp system ‘‘has no parallel in the world today’’; and Whereas the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea found that the government continually commits crimes against humanity and will not cease, ‘‘because the policies, institutions, and patterns of impunity that lie at their root remain in place’’: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate— 1 VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 7 •SRES 303 IS (1) calls upon the international community to— 1 (A) demand that the Government of the 2 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea dis- 3 mantle its labor camp system; 4 (B) create a special tribunal with jurisdic- 5 tion to investigate and remedy crimes against 6 humanity committed by the Government of 7 North Korea; 8 (C) consider targeted sanctions against 9 those individuals who have committed such 10 crimes against humanity; and 11 (D) ban import of goods made by prisoners 12 in the North Korean labor camp system; 13 (2) calls on the leadership of the Government of 14 North Korea to— 15 (A) immediately cease human rights 16 abuses; 17 (B) release the roughly 80,000 to 120,000 18 political prisoners; 19 (C) halt the ongoing arrests of North Ko- 20 reans on political and religious grounds; 21 (D) allow the International Committee of 22 the Red Cross entry into the camps to assist 23 with the release and rehabilitation of prisoners; 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 8 •SRES 303 IS (E) allow entry to the United Nations 1 High Commissioner for Human Rights and the 2 United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human 3 Rights in North Korea to monitor the situation 4 and assist with the rehabilitation; 5 (F) comply with international standards of 6 food distribution and monitoring and allow full 7 access to international humanitarian agencies; 8 and 9 (G) end the exportation of North Korean 10 forced labor consistent with obligations under 11 United Nations Security Council Resolution 12 2397 (2017); 13 (3) strongly condemns the use of forced labor 14 by the Government of North Korea; and 15 (4) calls on the United States Government to— 16 (A) consider additional sanctions to the ex- 17 tent possible against those individuals respon- 18 sible for the North Korean kwan-li-so labor 19 camp system, including individuals admin- 20 istering such labor camps; and 21 (B) continue to raise awareness in the 22 international community of the kwan-li-so labor 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 9 •SRES 303 IS camps and the continuing atrocious crimes 1 being committed in the labor camps. 2 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 21:43 Aug 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\SR303.IS SR303 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS