The human rights organization Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday (October 15) that the Chinese authorities continue to repatriate North Korean defectors, exposing them to the risk of torture, illegal detention, sexual violence, forced labor, and even execution. Since 2024, at least 406 North Korean citizens have been forcibly repatriated by the Chinese government.
According to the New York-based international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, the forced repatriation of North Korean citizens by China seriously violates international human rights conventions. Chinese officials involved in illegal repatriation may face criminal responsibility for assisting in the crimes of the North Korean authoritarian regime.
Lina Yoon, a senior researcher on North Korea issues at Human Rights Watch, stated that “the Chinese authorities forcibly repatriated hundreds of North Koreans knowing they would face severe persecution, which is a clear violation of their human rights.” She urged the Chinese authorities to “immediately allow the UN Refugee Agency to contact all North Korean citizens facing forced repatriation and to disclose data on detained or repatriated North Koreans.”
Due to a lack of official data from China, these 406 cases are based on reports provided by an informed source named Jin Shiping. Jin Shiping has extensive connections in both North Korea and China and has been a trusted source for Human Rights Watch. This new data brings the total number of forcibly repatriated defectors since 2020 to at least 1,076.
The 2014 report from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea stated that the North Korean authorities commit systematic crimes against humanity against defectors, including torture, sexual violence, forced labor, forced disappearances, and inhumane detention conditions. The commission warned that cooperation between China and the North Korean authorities could constitute complicity in crimes against humanity.
UN human rights experts have reiterated their concerns about China’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors in subsequent reports.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in a report in September 2025, “In the past decade, repatriated North Korean defectors have commonly suffered human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, abuse, forced disappearances, and sexual violence,” and called on all countries to “respect the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning asylum seekers to their home countries where they may face abuse.”
In 2010, the North Korean authorities designated defection as a “treason offense” punishable by death. North Korean citizens who leave the country without permission and face forced repatriation are considered “immediate refugees” – meaning that any unauthorized departure constitutes defection, regardless of their reasons for leaving or past persecution they may have faced.
In November 2024, several UN human rights experts wrote to the authorities in North Korea and China expressing concern over reports of the execution of two female defectors by North Korea in August 2024 – these women were among those repatriated in October 2023. The rights experts also inquired about the whereabouts of other defectors who were still forcibly disappeared, but both countries did not respond.
In a document submitted in July 2023, the UN Human Rights Council urged China to acknowledge the harsh persecution faced by some repatriated North Koreans and ensure they have access to asylum procedures and legal residence documents.
Human Rights Watch has verified multiple cases of forced repatriation since 2024. The majority of these individuals remain missing after being repatriated.
In January 2024, 108 North Korean overseas laborers were repatriated from Jilin Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Long City in China. These workers were involved in a protest turned violent conflict due to unpaid wages before being forcibly repatriated.
In April 2024, 60 North Korean citizens were repatriated from Jilin and Liaoning provinces; that same year, 212 illegally trafficked North Korean women were detained in Kunming, Yunnan Province, Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Poyang, Jiangxi Province, before being forcibly repatriated.
In early 2025, a 36-year-old overseas laborer was repatriated. This North Korean citizen, a computer hacker by profession, was detained for attempting to escape in early 2024; in mid-2024, five North Korean women subjected to forced marriage in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces were repatriated.
From December 2024 to July 2025, China forcibly repatriated 20 out of 22 North Korean women detained in Inner Mongolia. The two women not repatriated were sold in China and forced into marriage, becoming pregnant, and eventually sent back to their forced marriage partners’ homes.
Three former North Korean government officials informed Human Rights Watch that women who were coerced into pregnancy by Chinese men will face particularly harsh treatment upon their return to North Korea. The 2014 UN human rights investigation report revealed that the North Korean authorities typically enforce forced abortion and infanticide on these women, as mixed-race children are seen as a threat to the “purity” of the North Korean ethnicity.
In addition to repatriated individuals, as of July, over a hundred North Korean women are being held in detention centers in southern Chinese provinces. These women were trafficked into forced marriages and are attempting to seek refuge in a third country. The Chinese authorities plan to repatriate them to the homes of their forced marriage partners before the visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to China in September.
China continues to categorize undocumented North Korean citizens as illegal “economic immigrants” and implements forced repatriation according to a 1986 border agreement. With the increasingly intense surveillance and repression of the Chinese population by the authorities, the situation of defectors in mainland China is worsening.
During the universal periodic review by the UN Human Rights Council in 2024, China explicitly rejected proposals to cease the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors.
Human Rights Watch urges the Chinese authorities to respect the rights of North Korean defectors, immediately halt forced repatriation actions, provide asylum for North Korean refugees, allow them voluntary integration into Chinese society, and permit them to seek resettlement in third countries.