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Rights group urges China to educate refugee kids

Thousands of children of North Korean mothers living illegally in China are being denied a legal identity and the chance to go to school, a human-rights group said.

China’s policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees means “an awful choice” for families of mixed Chinese and North Korean parentage, the US-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday.

If they register their children so they can attend school, they risk the mother’s deportation to the North and subsequent imprisonment or even execution. If they do not, the child cannot receive an education.

In some parts of Yanbian region in Jilin Province bordering North Korea, the report said, local officials demand written proof that the North Korean mother has been repatriated before the father can register their children.

The group urged China to stop repatriating such refugees, and to ensure that all children of North Korean women can go to school without having to show household registration papers. Schools demand such documents even though Chinese law stipulates that all children shall receive nine years of compulsory and free education regardless of sex, nationality or race, it said.

“China must immediately stop such practices and allow access to education for all children, without preconditions,” Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia deputy director, said in the report.

Some parents have been forced to use bribery or trickery to ensure children can go to school, the group said.

“It’s unacceptable that children and their parents have to resort to such desperate or illegal measures to enjoy what should be the automatic right of going to school,” Pearson said.

Rights groups estimate there are more than 30,000 North Korean women hiding out in China, according to Kay Seok, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Seoul.

Many of them voluntarily form relationships with Chinese men but some are forced to do so as victims of trafficking, she said. Exact figures are unavailable but thousands of Korean-Chinese children are known to live in China, she said.


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