By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

The United Nations delegates who visited the North Korean city of Muncheon in 2001 to inspect the use of international food aid asked a North Korean child if he ate a lot of meat.

``Yes, I ate a lot,'' the child enthusiastically answered. ``We are eating very well every day.'' Other children uniformly nodded to the question.

But a North Korean defector, who had observed the scene, said, ``After the delegates left the town, I learnt teachers had trained them to say `we are eating very well everyday.' Prior to the inspection, the United Nations had supplied huge amounts of meat, enough for children to eat 1 kilogram per day, in the region. However, town authorities never followed the injunction and gave meat to them for the first time right before the visit to prevent children from accidentally revealing the truth.''

Another defector, who lived in Nampo, a port city in the North, said, ``When I was an elementary school student from 1998 to 2000, cookies produced by the U.N. ㅡ so called U.N. biscuits ㅡ were delivered to the school. But they were not free. Teachers announced we had to pay for them.''

A former North Korean, who defected in 2005 from Onsong, said children only had 2-3 days off per week during summer vacations, and were constantly mobilized for farming or other types of work instead of study.

These are among the stories included in a report ``Situation Report on the Rights of the Child.'' Jointly published by Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) and the Asia Center for Human Rights (ACHR), the report aims to shed light on rampant human rights violations against North Korean children.

The 40-page report was submitted Monday for the upcoming 50th session of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and was also delivered to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), NKHR said.

The report was based on in-depth face-to-face interviews with 50 defectors, including 40 teenagers, who fled from the reclusive state between 2001 and 2008, the NGOs said.

``The North Korean regime has been required to guarantee all children's rights since becoming a member state of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. But it was confirmed in the report that they have made little effort to protect their human rights,'' they said in a statement.

``The North Korean regime has been confident of its children's rights, promoting itself with the slogan `the child is king of the country' and `children are the treasure of the country.' But this report reveals their miserable situation,'' said Lee Young-hwan, senior researcher of NKHR.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr