Seminar publicizes plight of elderly woman held in NK gulag

At 3 p.m. Wednesday, Dr. Oh Kil-nam, 69, came to the podium at the conference room of the National Human Rights Commission in central Seoul. He is the husband of Shin Sook-ja, nicknamed "the daughter of Tongyeong," and the father of two 30-something daughters, Hye-won and Gyu-won.

He could not talk very long though he came to the podium with a deep sigh.

“I hear my wife and daughters cry every night. I (who defected to North Korea) don`t deserve to say this, but I beg you to please pay more attention to the fate of my poor wife and two daughters,” he pleaded. He then returned to his seat and closed his eyes with his head down.

The commission hosted a seminar jointly with non-governmental organizations campaigning for improving the human rights situation in North Korea. The event`s purpose was to be the first move by the South Korean government to rescue Shin and her two daughters from the North.

Three North Korean defectors who knew the mother and daughters at the North’s notorious Yodeok concentration camp attended the seminar to talk about their experiences.

Kim Tae-jin, who was at the camp from 1988 to 1992 and now heads a civic group in South Korea campaigning for its disbandment, recalled Shin as a “feeble but kind woman.”

“One day I brought firewood to Shin and then she made me bread with many holes with corn flour that she had saved,” he recalled. “I was so surprised how good it tasted. After I came to South Korea, I learned that it was a waffle.”

Saying he could not talk about her much when he met Oh in the South because of the painful memories, Kim said Shin and her daughters should be returned to the South as soon as possible.

Other defectors who wore sunglasses and hats to conceal their identities also talked about their memories of Shin and her daughters. One who saw them at the concentration camp from 1992 to 1995 said, “We called them a West German family because of rumors that Shin’s husband fled to the North from West Germany. Shin and her two daughters didn`t talk very much and always walked with their heads down to the extent that they were suspected to be sociophobic.”

The defector also said the older daughter Hye-won talked more than her mother and younger sister and that she once expressed hope that her father would come to get them out of the camp. “At the time, the concentration camp brainwashed Shin and her daughters, telling them to bring Dr. Oh back to the North," he said.

Another defector who spent three years with them at the camp from 1991 said, “It broke my heart to see 9-year-old Gyu-won walk through snow that accumulated as high as her height to get firewood. In the U.S. and Japan, the president and the prime minister take the initiative to get their people held captive in North Korea out of the communist country. Why is there nobody who does that in South Korea?”

Experts also suggested that the government make efforts to rescue Shin and her daughters.

“The detention of Shin and her daughters is a criminal act and human rights violation by the North Korean regime,” said Jhe Seong-ho, a Professor of Law at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. “The (South Korean) government should raise the issue with the international community, including the United Nations, to put pressure on the North.”

Sohn Hyeon-jin, a researcher at the Korea Legislation Research Institute, said, “It is urgent to see if Shin and her daughters are still alive. Based on accurate facts and concrete evidence, South Korea should establish a cooperative system with international nongovernmental human rights organizations and international bodies.”

Among those attending the seminar were Hwang Woo-yea, floor leader of the ruling Grand National Party, Park Sun-young, chief policymaker of the minor conservative Liberty Forward Party, and alumni who went to Masan University, where Shin attended.

British lawmaker Fiona Bruce sent a letter to the seminar. It said she notified the story of Shin and her daughters to the House of Commons and recently sent a bill urging the U.N. to form a committee to investigate violation of human rights in North Korean concentration camps.

The South Korean Unification Ministry said Wednesday that it would seek to form a government task force in charge of confirming the whereabouts and fate of South Koreans abducted to the North after the Korean War and their repatriation. The National Assembly urged the establishment of such a task force in the parliamentary audit of the administration amid increasing social interest in the fate of Shin and her two daughters.

“We are considering how to set up a task force under the Unification Ministry,” a ministry official said. “The task force will comprise officials from the unification and foreign affairs and trade ministries, the National Intelligence Service, the National Police Agency and other government bodies.”

The official added that a pan-governmental task force will raise inter-agency efficiency in dealing with the issue.

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