[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1080 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1080
Expressing the sense of Congress that coordinated action must be taken
by the United States Government and partner countries to address the
humanitarian and human rights crises facing North Koreans in the
People's Republic of China, including forced labor, arbitrary
detention, human trafficking, and the forcible repatriation from China.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 13, 2024
Mrs. Steel (for herself, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Mr. Gottheimer, Mrs.
Kim of California, and Mr. D'Esposito) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
in addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee
concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that coordinated action must be taken
by the United States Government and partner countries to address the
humanitarian and human rights crises facing North Koreans in the
People's Republic of China, including forced labor, arbitrary
detention, human trafficking, and the forcible repatriation from China.
Whereas North Korean escapees and asylum seekers in China, the vast majority of
whom are women, are again being forcibly returned to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) with the opening up of the
Sino-North Korean border in 2023;
Whereas the Governments of China and North Korea are now aggressively seeking to
locate and detain North Koreans who are in China and to forcibly return
them to North Korea, including by offering bounties for information on
North Koreans living in China;
Whereas, according to the 18 United Nations Special Experts on human rights in
an October 2023 statement urging the People's Republic of China to honor
its obligations under international law, ``there are long-standing and
credible reports to believe that North Korea escapees forced returned to
[North Korea] would be subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment and punishment and other serious human rights violations.'';
Whereas the 2014 Commission on Inquiry on Human Rights North Korea and the
United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights condemned the long-
standing, systematic and gross violations of human rights occurring in
North Korea, including those that may amount to crimes against humanity;
Whereas, according to the 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human
Rights in North Korea report, the Government of North Korea holds up to
120,000 political prisoners in camps managed by its State Security
Agency through the use of forced labor, beatings, torture, and
executions. Many prisoners also die from disease, starvation, and
exposure;
Whereas the Government of North Korea imposes punishments, including execution,
for crimes such as attempted defection, slander of the Korean Workers
Party, listening to foreign broadcasts, possessing printed matter that
is considered reactionary by the Korean Workers Party, and holding
prohibited religious beliefs;
Whereas the combination of political, social, and religious persecution and
acute food insecurity in North Korea cause many North Koreans to flee to
China, a trend that has occurred for over 30 years now;
Whereas an estimated 80 percent of North Korean asylum seekers are women and
girls who are particularly vulnerable to trafficking for the purpose of
sexual exploitation, forced labor, or forced marriages and detention in
China and if forcibly returned to North Korea they may face forced
abortions, rape, and other forms of violence in detention;
Whereas, according to the State Department's latest Trafficking in Persons
Report, approximately 30,000 children in China who were born to North
Korean mothers and Chinese fathers are unregistered, making them
stateless and ineligible for medical care, schooling, and other
government support in the People's Republic of China;
Whereas in order to generate income for the Government, including its illicit
nuclear weapons program, North Koreans are sent abroad, most often to
China and Russia, to work under conditions that reportedly amount to
forced labor, including in seafood process factories in Liaoning
Province of China;
Whereas seafood processed by North Koreans in Liaoning Province of China enter
the United States market, including baby clams, squid, and haddock
according to reports published by the Outlaw Ocean Project;
Whereas China and Russia violate with impunity United Nations Security Council
resolution 2397 (para. 8) which prohibits countries from employing North
Korean workers after December 2019;
Whereas any good made by North Korean labor, wholly or in part, is prohibited
from entry into the United States market by section 321 of the
Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (P.L. 115-44);
Whereas Members of Congress, on a bipartisan basis, have urged the Department of
Homeland Security to take action to stop seafood imports from China to
enter the United States market, until importers show that no North
Korean or Uyghur labor was used in processing;
Whereas, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights in North Korea in 2023, as many as 2,000 North Korean
asylum seekers and refugees were arrested and detained in China during
the COVID-19 lockdown;
Whereas at a July 2023 hearing at the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China titled ``North Korean Refugees and the Imminent Danger of Forced
Repatriation from China,'' satellite images were shown detailing
expanded detention facilities for North Koreans in China;
Whereas United Nations Third Committee adopted a resolution (A/C.3.78/L.39) in
November 2023, reminded UN member states, without naming the People's
Republic of China, to comply with its obligations to protect North
Korean refugees under the United Nations Convention Relating to the
Status of Refugees of 1951 (1951 United Nations Refugee Convention), and
its Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967 (1967 United
Nations Refugee Protocol), which defines a refugee as a person who,
``owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or
political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is
unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the
protection of that country'';
Whereas, despite the obligations of the People's Republic of China, as a state
party to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and the 1967 United
Nations Refugee Protocol, the Government routinely classifies North
Koreans in China as ``economic migrants'' and forcibly returns them to
North Korea without regard to the reason they escaped North Korea or the
serious threat of persecution they face upon their return;
Whereas the United Nations Resolution of November 2023 ``strongly urge(d)''
United Nations member states to respect the principle of nonrefoulment,
or forced deportations, given the ``internment, torture, [and] other
cruel and degrading treatment or punishment . . . including the death
penalty,'' faced by North Koreans forcibly returned from the People's
Republic of China;
Whereas the People's Republic of China is a signatory to the United Nations
Convention Against Torture, which obligates United Nations member states
to protect individuals, regardless of their migratory status, if there
is a risk of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, including the death penalty or enforced disappearances upon
return;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to deny
access to its border regions with North Korea to the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and to deny the UNHCR staff in the PRC
to determine the status of asylum or refugee claims, as the People's
Republic of China is obligated to do by its international legal
obligations: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) strongly encourages the President, the Secretary of
State, and all other relevant Cabinet Officers to raise with
the officials of the Government of the People's Republic of
China, in both bilateral and relevant multilateral settings,
the interests of the United States in protecting North Koreans
seeking asylum or those trafficked in the People's Republic of
China, including through--
(A) encouraging fulfilling of international
obligations to protect refugees and address human
trafficking within the People's Republic of China under
the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and the 1967
Refugee Protocol; Article 3 of the Convention Against
Torture, and the Palermo Protocol, all which the which
the Government of the People's Republic of China has
acceded to and ratified;
(B) using the voice, vote, and influence at the
United Nations to ensure that the UNHCR is able to
protect North Korea asylum seekers and provide them
with a reasonable opportunity to request asylum and be
processed in-country;
(C) ensuring that the Government of the People's
Republic of China understands the interests of the
United States and allied nations in ending North Korean
labor in the People's Republic of China as such labor
is a source of foreign capital for the North Korean
Government which is diverted to its nuclear program;
(D) using the voice, vote, and influence at the
United Nations to ensure that the People's Republic of
China and other United Nations member states fulfill
United Nations Resolution 2397 (para. 8) prohibiting
the use of North Korean labor; and
(E) ensuring that the Government of the People's
Republic of China remains fully aware that goods
produced with the labor of North Koreans in China are
presumptively prohibited entry into the United States
market under Countering America's Adversaries Through
Sanctions Act (P.L. 115-44);
(2) encourages the Secretary of State to--
(A) coordinate diplomatic actions with the
Governments of South Korea, Japan, and other concerned
Governments to end the forced deportations and forced
labor of North Koreans living in China;
(B) build coalitions with allies and partners at
the United Nations to--
(i) fully implement the recommendations of
the United Nation's Commission of Inquiry on
Human Rights in North Korea;
(ii) continue requests for briefings at the
United Nations Security Council by the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special
Rapporteur on the Situation in North Korea;
(iii) schedule regular Arria-formula
meetings at the United Nations Security Council
on the situation of North Koreans in China;
(iv) coordinate joint actions and
resolutions on the issue of the forced
repatriation or forcible return of North
Koreans from China and other human rights
abuses experienced in China with like-minded
allies at the United Nations Human Rights
Council; and
(v) press for UNHCR access to North Koreans
seeking asylum in China;
(C) consider issuing an atrocity determination for
the Government of the People's Republic of China for
its treatment of North Korean asylum-seekers, laborers,
women and girls in China and the fact that North
Koreans forcibly repatriated or returned will face
arbitrary detention, torture, hard labor, or even
execution;
(D) use existing sanctions authorities found in the
Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to hold
accountable officials from the Government of the
People's Republic of China, or other United Nations
member states, who knowingly engage in the forcible
deportation of North Koreans and for failing to address
the human trafficking of North Koreans, including
Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of
provinces near the North Korean border; and
(E) redesignate the Government of the People's
Republic of China as a ``Tier 3'' country for its
failure to address trafficking in persons in China and
use the tools available in the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000 to provide incentives for the
government to fulfill its obligations under
international human rights and refugee law;
(3) encourages the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security, in coordination with the Secretary of the Department
of Labor, to address the issue of forced labor of North Korean
workers in the People's Republic of China including through--
(A) enforcing the Countering America's Adversaries
Through Sanctions Act (P.L. 115-44) provision that
presumptively prohibits entry into the United States
market of any goods produced with the labor of North
Koreans;
(B) reporting to Congress on any imports to the
United States of goods produced by North Koreans
working in the People's Republic of China;
(C) issuing a Withhold Release Order for Liaoning
Province of the People's Republic of China where the
seafood industry using North Korean labor is based;
(D) issuing a Withhold Release Order for any
factory where North Korean labor is employed; and
(E) issuing a joint advisory with other relevant
Cabinet-level agencies on imported seafood processed in
China to ensure that all Federal agencies end the
sourcing of seafood processed by forced labor or caught
by fleets of the People's Republic of China engaged in
illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing.
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