A/HRC/25/CRP.1 though a student’s ration is only a pound per day, so you can see that someone, somewhere, was skimming more than half of what we sent.” He also noted that his daughters were attending the Foreign Language College, “supposedly a high-class place where the country’s elite were being educated”.415 340. The Commission believes that if these practices prevailed in elite schools, those attending less privileged institutions may be subjected to similar requests to provide subsides that their families may not be able to afford. 341. In addition, it appears that privileges in school – such as whether a student can be designated head of class – are also determined by songbun.416 Furthermore, compulsory education does not apply to children sent to political prison camps, where an elementary level of instruction is administered under a different curriculum.417 342. Where discrimination in education becomes most apparent is in the selection process for universities or the opportunity to even take the entrance examination. Numerous testimonies of witnesses interviewed by the Commission reported that those persons with low songbun were not even allowed to take the entrance exam or were not allowed to attend institutions appropriate to their level of academic performance and test scores.418 • A witness told the Commission that, due to her hostile songbun, she was prevented from returning to Pyongyang where she was born. She was also rejected by the university where she had applied to study dance and instead was sent to work in agricultural projects.419 343. Given the outsized role in determining one’s future, songbun also affects people’s opportunities for marriage.420 One prominent example is Ms Jang Kum-song, whose mother is Ms Kim Kyong-hui (the sister of Kim Jong-il) and whose father is the now-deceased Mr Jang Song-thaek. Ms Jang died in Paris in 2006, aged 26, as a result of suicide. Educated in Europe, she reportedly wished to marry a particular DPRK man but her parents opposed the union due to the difference in songbun. 344. The most vulnerable groups—persons of low songbun, women, children and persons with disabilities—are particularly disadvantaged in their access to health services and medicine. The state purports to provide free access to medical services for all citizens while providing special protection for special groups such as “revolutionary fighters, families of revolutionary martyr soldiers, families of patriotic martyr soldiers, families of North Korean People’s Army soldiers, and awarded soldiers”.421 In reality, however, while 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 96 Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick, The Reluctant Communist, My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-year Imprisonment in North Korea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2008), pp. 129, 134-135; TSH054. TBG024. KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2012), p. 364; Kang Chol-hwan in his book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, (New York, Basic Books, 2001), pp. 63-78, details the change in schooling when he was sent to a political prison camp at the age of nine. TJH026, TAP008. TGC001. TSH051 explained that because of her songbun, no one would approach her to get married. A military doctor from Pyongyang came to see her on an arranged blind date and after several dates they were supposed to get engaged, but the engagement was called off when he found out about her songbun. It was a very embarrassing time, with the witness thinking that she was never going to be married. In the DPRK, songbun comes first, the witness said. DPRK Constitution, articles 56 and 72.