Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-01-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations on North Korean women trafficked into China as part of the next UK-China Human Rights Dialogue.
Mr Hugo Swire
We remain concerned at the continuing reports of widespread and systematic state sanctioned human rights violations in DPRK, and we continue to press the regime to make progress on improving its appalling human rights record, most recently at a meeting that I had in December with a senior visiting North Korean diplomat.
We also continue to raise the situation in DPRK with Chinese counterparts. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) raised North Korea’s nuclear programme with State Councillor Yang Jiechi during his visit to China earlier this month, and I raised our human rights concerns with Vice-Minister of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Fengxiang, in December. We consistently raise our concerns during the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue, particularly on the issue of refoulement (the repatriation of individuals who have left North Korea). We work directly with the Chinese authorities on a number of projects to counter human trafficking which seek to protect the most vulnerable from exploitation, abuse, neglect and violence.
