The #MeToo campaign is generating so much news in South Korea that it could be easy to forget that the same issues exist, to a greater degree, north of the border. Korea Future Initiative is a London-based organisation that rescues vulnerable North Koreans, reports and investigates human rights violations, and provides redress for exiles through transitional and conventional justice mechanisms, memory projects, and outreach programmes with exiled communities. KFI’s report, Us Too: Sexual Violence Against North Korean Women and Girls, documents how acts of sexual violence are perpetrated against females of every class, age, and status in North Korea, and was released on 8 March, International Women’s Day. According to KFI: “Legislation designed to protect women and girls is not just inadequate and unenforced, it is repeatedly bypassed by men with power, money, and political influence. A thinly disguised misogyny pervades all that the government touches, allowing perpetrators to find shelter in its institutions and society’s patriarchal conventions.”
The full report can be downloaded free from their website.
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