N.Korean women up for sale in China: activist

SEOUL — Young female refugees from North Korea are increasingly becoming a commodity in China, where they are sold to farmers for up to 1,500 dollars a head, according to a Seoul campaigner.

The human trafficking is far from new but has become more prevalent as prices soar amid a shortage of Chinese women in the countryside, said Reverend Chun Ki-Won, head of the Durihana Association, which offers aid to refugees.

Chun, who has helped more than 900 North Koreans escape from China, said women are forced to live "like animals" because of Beijing's policy of repatriating the refugees as economic migrants.

"China is now a responsible nation. It should care about national prestige through solving human rights issues," he told AFP.

If the women were not in danger of being sent back "they would not have to live such an inhumane life as this" in China, he said.

Men escaping the impoverished hardline North increasingly fall victim to tighter border controls or to bounties offered to Chinese for turning them in.

Women can find safer shelter across the border because of their economic value. Nowadays they make up around 80 percent of the tens of thousands of North Koreans hiding in China, Chun said.

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