According to the AFP via Straits Times:
Two female refugees from North Korea have been arrested in South Korea for allegedly forcing fellow fugitives into prostitution while they were in China, police said on Tuesday.
The case is a rare attempt to punish refugees for crimes in China, where many women who have fled the North are sexually exploited.
Police said that over a two-year period the pair acquired 70-80 North Korean women fresh from their impoverished homeland, about half of them from Chinese brokers.
They paid the brokers about 3.6 million South Korean won (S$4,166) for each woman. The pair allegedly forced the women into prostitution in night-time establishments they operated in the north-eastern Chinese city of Qingdao between 2007 and 2009.
The two, now aged 30 and 40, left China for South Korea in 2009. Seoul police launched an investigation following complaints from some of the victims who had managed to escape to the South, said Mr Park Chu Ung, a police officer in charge of the investigation.
Two ethnic Korean Chinese living in the South were also arrested for working with the pair in China. Police also suspect that another North Korean refugee in China and a South Korean who lives overseas acted as accomplices.
Read the full story here:
N.Korean refugees accused over China sex trade
AFP via Straits Times
4/12/2011
