N. Korean women in military widely exposed to sexual violence

"In reality, however, military service is not as glorious as it appears from the outside," the South Korean group said in a report released at a forum in Seoul, citing testimonies from 25 North Korean defectors, including 20 females, it interviewed last year.

Raising concerns over widespread cases of rape against women in all sectors of North Korea, including schools and workplaces, NKHR said the government continues to evade responsibility for sexual crimes in the military despite its huge attention to defense.

"Violence against women is ... especially notorious within the construction unit. When a woman enters the construction unit, people say it's impossible for her to protect herself from the sexual, physical and verbal abuse because the construction unit has no strict regulations against crimes," it said.

"In the military, all men go after pretty girls," NHKR quoted Kim Young-ok (alias), a female defector, as saying. "When girls get raped, they can't report it anywhere."

Kim went on to speak of a case in which a unit commander over 60 years old apparently forced a 20-something female soldier into routinely sleeping with him.

"When a girl is sent to the construction unit, the girl's body is considered to be a piece of trash," another female defector, Park Kumbong, was quoted as saying in the report.

Joana Hosaniak, an NHKR member who spoke at the forum, said women have little knowledge of means to rely on to defend themselves against such violence.

"The military is a way to climb up the social ladder" in North Korea, she said, suggesting women also have a tendency to hide cases of sexual violence against them because they fear being discharged from the dominantly male military organization.

Another reason, she said, is that women fear being stripped of opportunities to get married if acts of sexual violence against them are publicized.

"In general, the prevalent perception in the society is that a woman has to be a virgin in order to marry," she said.

North Korea is one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Its treatment of women is also the subject of harsh criticism as the country staunchly holds on to a set of traditional values that consider women naturally lower than men in social rankings.

It was apparent that the social positions of families that female soldiers came from mattered in their military life. One defector who came to the South in 2003 was quoted by NHKR as saying that the parents of such female soldiers routinely called unit commanders to take care of their children.

NHKR, which was set up in 1996, released its report, "The Battered Wheel of the Revolution," at a forum jointly sponsored by the British and Dutch embassies in South Korea.