A/HRC/25/CRP.1 • One witness testified before the Commission: “Domestic violence is quite common. There is no law on this: family issues stay within the family. Even if a woman complains, the police will not interfere in family business.”374 • Similar sentiments were heard by the Commission from another witness: “[Violence against women] is considered a family matter. Only if the person is seriously injured then it becomes public. It is frequent. There is no place to complain. It can be used as a cause of divorce. Nothing is done to the husband even if the woman is severely beaten.”375 318. Witnesses have testified that violence against women is not limited to the home, and that it is common to see women being beaten and sexually assaulted in public.376 Officials are not only increasingly engaging in corruption in order to support their low or nonexistent salaries, they are also exacting penalties and punishment in the form of sexual abuse and violence as there is no fear of punishment.377 As more women assume the responsibility for feeding their families due to the dire economic and food situation, more women are traversing through and lingering in public spaces, selling and transporting their goods. The male dominated state, agents who police the marketplace, inspectors on trains and soldiers are increasingly committing acts of sexual assault on women in public spaces. The Commission received testimony that while rape of minors is severely punished in the DPRK, the rape of adults is not really considered a crime.378 The Commission also received reports of train guards frisking women as they travel through the cars, and abusing young girls onboard.379 One witness told the Commission: “Women were frisked as they entered the station [to check they were not carrying items for sale], I think this is how the sexual violence started happening. Guards also take young girls on the train for sexual acts, including rape. Everyone knows this is happening, it is an open secret.”380 319. Such behavior has been observed as “the increasingly male-dominated state preying on the increasingly female-dominated market”.381 Sexual assaults of women within the military have become frequent.382 A former military officer explained: “There were a lot of cases of sexual abuse and rape committed often by senior officers. Normal soldiers would also engage in rape, exacerbated by the fact that these young men were denied the right to have any sexual relations while serving in the army. The rapes were typically covered up, although male comrades would talk about them and some even bragged. It was common knowledge that rapes were taking place.”383 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 90 TBG030. TBG028. TSH020, TSH008, TLC042. Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, “Status of Women’s Rights in the Context of Socio-Economic Changes in the DPRK”, p. 29. TLC042. TSH008. TSH020. Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland, “Gender in Transition”, p. 51. KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 395. TJH044.