A/HRC/43/58 perpetrators of gender-based violence. 49 Accounts by escapees indicate that there is no effective protection or reporting mechanism for women who are victims of violence, and that perpetrators, with only a few exceptions, are not held accountable for such crimes. E. Trafficking in and sexual exploitation of women seeking to leave the country 36. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea acceded to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime on 16 June 2016, but has not yet ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention. The 2010 Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Women prohibits the act of “abducting, trafficking, raping or gang raping a woman” and provides that the institutions concerned are to take stringent measures for the prevention of the aforementioned acts, while imposing severe legal punishments on those who commit such acts. However, there are no legal provisions to criminalize trafficking in persons or define punishments. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur urges the Government to seek technical assistance to duly comply with its law. A survey by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of 636 women who arrived in the Republic of Korea in 2018 and 2019 showed that the majority of them had spent several years in China prior to their arrival. Accounts indicate that many women have been trafficked and sold into forced marriage or the sex trade. It has reportedly become more difficult for women from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who have crossed the border irregularly to remain in China for a longer period without proper identification. Children born in China to mothers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are in some cases unregistered and therefore unable to attend school. Some women escape to the Republic of Korea without their children, either leaving them behind or seeking to be reunited with them after acquiring citizenship and settling in the Republic of Korea. F. Treatment in detention and treatment upon repatriation 37. In the OHCHR survey of 636 women who arrived in the Republic of Korea in 2018 and 2019, 27 per cent of the women had been detained on at least one occasion prior to leaving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. According to personal accounts, conditions in detention for women failed to meet basic human rights standards. 50 Many women described insufficient and poor quality of food, lack of privacy, lack of access to sanitation and hygiene, and hard labour during detention. One woman who escaped from the country in 2019 stated that she was detained in a labour training camp for a month because she had visited a fortune teller when her mother was ill. She said that her detention experience finally convinced her to leave the country because “everything [in detention] was so hard – the toilet was not properly equipped, men and women had to sleep in the same room, the work was from eight in the morning to eight at night, and from five in the morning for those who worked outside of the camp, and the learning of the ten principles51 and [detention] regulations was from nine to eleven at night”. One former detainee described an improvement in access to sanitation in one pretrial detention centre close to the border with China. In that facility, detainees were reportedly provided with soap, salt in place of toothpaste, towels and tissue paper, and menstruating women were given sanitary pads. 38. Women in detention remain vulnerable to sexual violence and sexual harassment. Guards are male and there are no safe avenues for filing complaints. Cases of guards or investigators demanding bribes or sexual favours in return for better treatment, including 49 50 51 CEDAW/C/PRK/CO/2-4, para. 11 (c). General Assembly resolution 65/229 of 21 December 2010. “Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System”, announced by Kim Jong Il in 1974, are regulations that citizens should comply with. 13