By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

North Korea remains a source country for trafficking humans for forced labor and sexual exploitation, and South Korea also actively trades women and girls for sex in and out of the nation, according to a U.S. report.

An annual U.S. report by the Department of State said a growing number of South Korean women and girls are traded within the country and to other destinations including Japan, Hong Kong and even Western Europe.

The report, titled ``Trafficking in Persons Report’’ for 2008 attributed the causes of the trend to South Korea's strict law against domestic sex trafficking, adding that South Korea is a source of sex trafficking for women from Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Thailand and China.

It classified the North as a ``tier three’’ country under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protections Act (TVPA) this year. Tier three is the lowest possible rank and refers to countries that fail to satisfy the minimum conditions required. It said the North Korean government ``does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.’’

It laid part of the blame on China. ``While the PRC (China) has taken some steps to address trafficking in persons across its borders with Vietnam and Burma, it has done little to address the status of vulnerable North Koreans within its borders, and does not provide North Korean trafficking victims with legal alternatives to their removal from China,’’ it said.

South Korea is classified as a tier one country, the status it has maintained since 2002. Still, it said South Korea is also ``significant source of demand'' for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.

In reaction to the report, National Human Rights Commission of Korea’s spokeswoman Yoon Seo-ra said that the report means that South Korea ``needs to take steps to protect human rights further, including immigrant women.’’ She did not elaborate further. Other civic groups were not immediately available for comment.

The U.S. report said Seoul needs to set up an enforcement system to curb sex tourism and protect the rights of women from less developed Asian countries. It also suggested the implementation of laws to protect foreign brides in South Korea and enhance the protection of foreign workers by investigating and prosecuting cases of forced labor among migrant workers.

North Korea continues to send its workers abroad, and recently signed an agreement with Mongolia to send up to 5,300 laborers there over the next five years, the report said. While there is no evidence of force, fraud or coercion in the recruitment process, there are continued reports that they are subject to harsh conditions, it said. The North is believed to also have recruitment agreements with Russia, Romania, Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq and China.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr