CIVICUS discusses North Korea’s closed civic space with Hanna Song, Executive Director of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB). Based in Seoul, South Korea, NKDB documents systematic human rights violations in North Korea through testimonies from escapees, and has built the world’s largest private database of such abuses.
North Korea’s complete isolation and denial of access to independent monitors makes civil society documentation efforts the sole source of credible information on human rights abuses. However, recent funding cuts threaten to dismantle decades of work to preserve survivor testimonies and hold the regime accountable.
What North Korean human rights violations has NKDB documented?
When NKDB first began documenting violations in 2003, testimonies focused overwhelmingly on survival during the ‘Arduous March’ of the 1990s, a period of severe famine that killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. People described the collapse of the food distribution system, with families torn apart and entire communities struggling with famine. At the time, violations were framed through the lens of survival – the right to food and life – revealing the state’s neglect of basic needs.
Over time, as more escapees shared their experiences, it became clear these violations weren’t limited to famine periods but were part of a systematic pattern of abuse. The landmark 2014 United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry report solidified this understanding. It documented widespread violations, from political prison camps to enforced disappearances, persecution on political and religious grounds and torture, and concluded that crimes against humanity were – and continue to be – perpetrated by the North Korean state.
There has been little improvement in the years since. The government has tightened information restrictions, further isolating people from the outside world. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this isolation, closing borders, worsening economic hardship and reducing the already small number of defections, making testimony collection harder. Most recently, the regime’s decision to dispatch young soldiers to Russia has raised additional alarm, as it has exposed minors and young adults to forced labour and potential involvement in armed conflict.
Despite evolving circumstances, the underlying reality remains unchanged: North Korea continues to operate a system of control that denies people the most basic rights and freedoms.
How does NKDB monitor human rights violations?
North Korea permits no independent human rights monitoring or reporting within its borders. Even the UN has never been granted investigative access despite repeated requests. This complete isolation means monitoring organisations must rely on escapee accounts, making testimonies from defectors and refugees indispensable windows into a society the regime keeps hidden.
NKDB conducts secure and confidential interviews with escapees after they have resettled in South Korea. There are around 34,000 people. We document experiences ranging from arbitrary detention and torture to forced labour and religious persecution. Although the sharp decline in recent defections has reduced new testimonies, the information we collect remains critical. When combined with satellite imagery, open-source intelligence and other remote monitoring tools, these first-hand accounts allow us to identify patterns of repression and preserve survivor voices for history and accountability.
Through this work, we’ve built the largest private database on North Korean human rights abuses, containing over 88,000 documented cases based on interviews with more than 20,000 people. This database forms the foundation for UN reports, government policy and international advocacy, and lays the groundwork for future transitional justice processes.
But we don’t stop at documentation. We have in-house counsellors and social welfare workers who provide psychosocial support to escapees after they share their testimonies. For many, recounting traumatic experiences is retraumatising. We don’t abandon them after the interview process, but provide them ongoing counselling and practical support to help them process their experiences, heal and rebuild their lives. In this way we have preserved critical evidence while preserving the dignity and wellbeing of those who entrust us with their stories.
How has civil society documentation influenced policy and international awareness?
Civil society documentation has profoundly influenced international attention and responses to North Korea’s human rights situation. For instance, NKDB’s research on overseas workers has highlighted the critical intersection between security and human rights. While the focus is often on sanctions or weapons proliferation, our work ensures North Korean people’s rights aren’t forgotten, even amid emerging Russia-North Korea ties.
By documenting how North Korean workers are exploited abroad – through wage confiscation, movement restrictions and state surveillance – we provide evidence for human rights-based policy approaches. In a context as closed as North Korea, civil society testimonies and evidence form the foundation for major human rights reports by governments, UN special rapporteurs and international bodies. Without this documentation, there would simply be no reliable record of the scale, scope or persistence of human rights abuses in North Korea. Our work preserves truth, amplifies the voices of survivors and keeps the international community accountable to its responsibility to act.
What has been the impact of recent US funding cuts?
US withdrawal has caused a huge crisis. For two decades, the USA played a unique role in sustaining the global movement for truth, justice and accountability for the people of North Korea. It was the only government that provided consistent and large-scale support for documenting human rights abuses in North Korea. In the absence of alternative funding, this support enabled much of the North Korean human rights movement to exist. Now that movement is facing its greatest crisis since it began in the 1990s.
For escapees who depend on civil society organisations (CSOs) for therapy, counselling and reintegration support, this freeze has meant a loss of essential services. It has also weakened the ability of survivor empowerment groups and information dissemination organisations to train defectors as advocates, challenge the regime’s information blockade and bring credible evidence to the international community. In our case, the suspension of funding threatens the infrastructure we have built since 2003.
The impact is also symbolic: it sends North Korean escapees and victims who have risked everything to tell their stories the chilling message that their voices don’t matter.
Impacts go far beyond civil society. Human rights documentation challenges the secrecy, denial and impunity on which authoritarian regimes thrive. It provides credible evidence that informs international pressure, prevents the regime rewriting history and generates the intelligence needed to understand the regime’s inner dynamics in the absence of conventional diplomacy. All that infrastructure –databases, testimonies, training programmes and survivor networks — is at risk of being dismantled.
How are you adapting and finding alternative resources?
Faced with declining funding and challenging conditions, NKDB and other CSOs have adopted multiple adaptation strategies. Collaboration is central: by working together with other CSOs, academic institutions and advocacy groups, we pool expertise, share methodologies and sustain initiatives despite disruptions.
We’ve also actively engaged with the public to build grassroots support. Our public exhibition in Seoul makes North Korean escapee stories tangible for residents and international tourists. By translating statistics into human-centred experiences, the exhibition reminds visitors of the issue’s urgency while encouraging broader community engagement and cultivating supporters who can advocate and contribute in the long term.
What urgent actions should the international community take?
Given these critical realities, the international community must prioritise restoration and expansion of funding for advocacy, documentation and research. Adequate support ensures CSOs maintain capacity, pursue high-impact initiatives and respond to emerging crises like young soldiers’ deployment to Russia.
Beyond funding, capacity development support is crucial, including training in digital security and evidence verification. The international community must facilitate access to decision-making forums where civil society findings directly inform policymaking through UN bodies and diplomatic engagements.
Critically, human rights and security are deeply intertwined. Documentation provides real-time intelligence on North Korea’s internal dynamics, essential for informed diplomacy. The international community should ensure human rights remain central in broader diplomatic efforts.
Finally, cross-border collaboration among CSOs, governments and academic institutions must be strengthened. This amplifies credible evidence while sustaining networks capable of long-term monitoring. It ensures the human rights ecosystem survives political uncertainty and funding disruptions. To prevent years of progress unravelling, the international community must act decisively, strategically and urgently.
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