The flags stand outside the United Nations building (UN), Geneva. (Photographic Credit: Sedat Suna/Getty Images)
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As the Council of Human Rights prepares to examine the situation in North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)), the UN has been particularly liberated about report On the state of human rights in the country, once referred to by Justice Kirby as violations of human rights without “parallel to the modern world”. Over a decade later, the situation shows no signs of improvement. On September 5, 2025, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Macular), in press briefing, presented the findings of their report, interviewing 314 victims and witnesses who abandoned North Korea and have consulted with various organizations and experts to evaluate the situation from 2014.
Among the concerns raised is the issue of the death penalty now used more broadly, allowed by law and is practiced in practice a decade before. The death penalty is widely used against senior officials for generally defined “anti-state acts”, to distribute unauthorized media, drug and financial crimes, prostitution, pornography, trafficking and murder. Ohchr said it has gathered reliable evidence that people have been executed for the exchange of online shows, which is considered a “distribution crime at a certain level, foreign information, foreign media”. Public tests and executions are used to instill fear in the population and as a deterrent.
The new laws, policies and practices have allowed increased surveillance and control of citizens in all parts of life, some of whom have resulted in forced camps as political prisoners. As an escape prescribed Ohchr: “In order to block people’s eyes and ears, they reinforced repressions. It was a form of control that was intended to eliminate even the smaller points of dissatisfaction or complaint.” As a reference findings: “No other population is under the restrictions in today’s world.”
Forced labor is said to have become deeply established in the last decade, through “forced mobilizations in the prison system, the army, the” shock brigades “, the neighborhood monitoring units and other Community groups, the school system and the overseas workers”. Authorities in Pyongyang are said to have used thousands of orphans and children on the road to work on coal mines and other environments where they will be exposed to dangerous materials and long hours of work. In addition, school kids do “backbreaking” tasks that collect harvests instead of being in the classroom. In terms of deaths are said to be frequent. “However, instead of providing health and safety measures, the government publicly glorifies deaths as a sacrifice to the leader.”
In addition, the report explains that “the fate of hundreds of thousands of extinct persons, including abducted aliens, remains unknown.
The report concludes that North Korea is far from compliance with its obligations under international law. In addition, as North Korea remains isolated and more than any other country, monitoring the human rights compliance is extremely difficult. More than a decade later, the majority of the recommendations made by Inquiry Committee on Human Rights in the Korean People’s Republic (Research Committee), chaired by Justice Kirby, have not been implemented. The accountability for human rights violations is minimal and accountability for international crimes remains non -existent. UN human rights chief Volker Türk, commenting on the findings, said: “What we have seen is a lost decade. And it hurts to say that if [North Korea]
It continues its current orbit, the population will undergo more than suffering, violent repression and fear that they have endured for so long. ”
