Be warned, this is a lamentation. Or a ventilation. I don’t do that a lot but in the article today, ”North Korean women “subject to sexual abuse”, I (as a husband and father) can’t help but tear in my heart for the victims in a world that is infested with this ringing propaganda: -
“LONG LIVE KIM IL-SUNG.
KIM JONG-IL, SUN OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
LET’S LIVE OUR OWN WAY.
WE WILL DO AS THE PARTY TELLS US.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO ENVY IN THE WORLD.”
With that triumphant (mostly deluded) endorsement comes a rights group expose on how “North Korean police and other officials (have been preying) on women with near-total impunity.”
After interviewing more than 50 North Korean escapees, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) “chronicled gruesome details of abuses perpetrated by civilian officials as well as security officers such as border guards.”
To catch a glimpse of this horrid report, here is what was written.
“Every night some women would be forced to leave with a guard and be raped.” - said one victim in her 30s who was held at the border detention centre.
“Traders who smuggle goods across the border with China to sell at state-sanctioned private markets are forced to pay “bribes” including sexual favours.”
“Perpetrators include managers at state-owned enterprises, and gatekeeper officials at the markets and on the roads and checkpoints, such as police, prosecutors, soldiers, and railroad inspectors on trains.”
Alas, the corruption goes all the way down to the justice system of the dictator’s state. And justice has a new meaning in the isolated state. “The concept of rape is different in the North...where it is seen as applying only if violence is used.”
So, if you, as a helpless 16-year-old, go silently into the night with a guard or official and submit to his wicked ways out of fear, confusion and resignation, it is NOT rape.
This was what happened to an anonymous trader in her 40s. She said she was being treated like a sex toy “at the mercy of men.”
“On the days they felt like it, market guards or police officials could ask me to follow them to an empty room outside the market, or some other place they’d pick, where they forced sexual encounters.”
“It happens so often nobody thinks it is a big deal. We don’t even realise when we are upset. But we are human, and we feel it. So sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and don’t know why.”
Lesson? ...some lamentation are beyond words. I am a father with two young daughters and I cannot imagine my daughters, out of nowhere, crying at night in a god-forsaken cell and not knowing why. The pain is so deep, the confusion so numbing, and the spirit so broken that they have lost the “whys” of living.
You wonder, for those who are dying, are they already dead? For those who are weeping, are they already forgotten? For those who are struggling, are they already abandoned? And for those who are praying, are they already silenced?
Recently, Google staff conducted a public walk out over harassment and inequality. It reports that “the demonstration follow a New York Times report last week that said Google In 2014 gave a US$90 million exit package to Mr Andy Rubin after the then senior vice-president was accused of sexual harassment.”
Of course, Mr Rubin denied the allegations, which he said contained “wild exaggerations”. But Google curiously did not dispute the report.
It is noted that “the report energised a months-long movement inside Google to increase diversity, improve treatment of women and minorities, and ensure company upholds its motto of “don’t be evil” as it expands.””
I inserted this news here because if Google is a microcosm of a world where employees take their initiative to demonstrate and stand up for the weak, oppressed and abused, where is such a world then for the women of North Korean where the only motto the young and vulnerable have ever known is “let’s be evil” and be evil under the badge of honour, in the name of protection and under the refuge of shelter and care.
The director of HRW, Kenneth Roth, said: “Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret. North Korean women would probably say “Me Too” if they thought there was any way to obtain justice, but their voices are silenced in Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship.”
And what is their beloved leader doing now?
Well, he is “planning an unprecedented flurry of summits with world leaders, as he steps up his push to ease sanctions four months after the landmark meeting with US President Donald Trump.”
Mm...
Something just boggles your mind. Who is a leader if not someone who leads. Who is someone who leads if not someone who leads to bring his people out of poverty. Who is someone who leads to bring his people out of poverty if not someone who sacrifices his own interest and comfort for his people, regardless of age, sex, colour and creed. And who is someone who sacrifices his own interest and comfort for his people, regardless of age, sex, colour and creed, if not someone who is a trusted leader, and a trusted leader whom the people can safely put their whole heart, hope and life on.
So, let me end with this ringing endorsement again: -
“LONG LIVE KIM IL-SUNG.
KIM JONG-IL, SUN OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
LET’S LIVE OUR OWN WAY.
WE WILL DO AS THE PARTY TELLS US.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO ENVY IN THE WORLD.”
Yup, nothing to envy.
Truly, there are no lies for which we are truly punished except the lies we tell ourselves. But the tragedy is that some lies are told so often, so ingrained and so widespread that it has elevated itself to self-evident truths.
And the biting irony is that only the innocent, those who “sometimes, out of nowhere, cry at night and don’t know why”, are punished.
Sadly, my lamentation sees no end...Cheerz?
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