doi: 10.1111/imig.

12602

Cosmopolitanism: The Foundational Ground

for a More Inclusive Understanding of
Belonging to Protect the Human Rights of
North Korean Stateless Women

I Sil Yoon*

ABSTRACT

In this article, I will examine the use of the notion of cosmopolitanism to address the exclu-
sionary nature of citizenship. Citizenship is a contemporary social norm that privileges citizens
and discriminates against others, leading to consequent human rights violations experienced by
stateless populations. I will use the case study of North Korean stateless women who reside in
China and who are victims of human trafficking as an example of stateless people who lack
legal guarantees for human rights. By uncovering the way citizenship operates as a social
structure that deprives people of their human rights, I will argue for Seyla Benhabib’s notion
of cosmopolitanism, which pursues a more inclusive notion of belonging and necessitates insti-
tutional changes. These include the juridical implementation of improved immigration policy
and citizenship law, involving the cooperation of the global society, to recognize the dignity
of the stateless and protect their human rights.

INTRODUCTION

“Citizenship” has been generally described as one of the “most desired conditions” in recent socio-
political as well as legal accounts.1 Its romanticized ideals of providing a sense of belonging and
inclusion through political membership have been regarded as the conditions for accomplishing the
aspirations of democracy and egalitarianism. Nevertheless, the lack of this belonging has been
embodied as the exclusion of those outside of the nation’s boundaries, in the name of community
protection and national security.2 The ideal of protection privileges those who have citizenship and
excludes those who do not, which leads to depriving the latter of their human rights. Further,
human rights are neither legally nor practically guaranteed for stateless populations who do not
possess political membership in any country.
This article aims to explore the impact of Seyla Benhabib’s concept of cosmopolitanism, criticis-
ing the operation of citizenship as a contemporary social norm of belonging which discriminates
against those who lack political membership and promoting a more inclusive notion of belonging.
The article examines the human rights violations experienced by stateless people due to the exclu-
sionary constraints of citizenship, using a case study of North Korean trafficked women in China,
and argues for a cosmopolitan vision which addresses the harms experienced by the stateless and
calls for broader systemic change.

* Santa Clara University, Santa Clara

© 2019 The Author

International Migration © 2019 IOM
International Migration
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. ISSN 0020-7985
2 Sil Yoon

To accomplish these aims, I will first critically examine the human rights violations experienced
by stateless people arising from the exclusive nature of citizenship. I will then analyse Seyla Ben-
habib’s concept of cosmopolitanism as a foundational theory that can contribute to protecting these
victims’ human rights. Next, I will explore the specific case of the human rights violations faced in
China by North Korean stateless women who are victims of human trafficking. Finally, I will
address the potential impact of cosmopolitanism in achieving human rights protections for stateless
people and in calling for institutional changes, such as the juridical implementation of improved
immigration policy and citizenship law.
The primary methodology of this study will be literature analysis and ethnographic research. For
the case study I will present, I conducted semi-structured interviews with eight North Korean
women who were victims of human trafficking during their stay in China, prior to their escape to
South Korea. I interviewed them to understand the reasons for their escape from North Korea and
their experiences as stateless women in China, with a focus on their experiences of human traffick-
ing and human rights violations. Although the interviewees ranged in age from their 20s to their
40s, the forms of human trafficking and human rights violations they experienced showed certain
patterns that I will describe throughout this article. I utilized my interview findings to explore the
patterns connected to the trafficking of North Korean women in China and the human rights viola-
tions experienced by these women. In addition to this empirical research, to explore the social
structures and political interests of various countries that contribute to these human rights violations
against North Korean women in China, I analysed laws, policies and public discourse.

THE EXCLUSIVE NATURE OF THE CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF

BELONGING AND THE DIVIDED NATURE OF CITIZENSHIP

Citizenship is described as a “legal status based on nationality that is conferred by a state at birth
or through naturalization and which also confers specific rights and responsibilities in relation to
that state,” from a liberal perspective.3 From a republican viewpoint, citizenship “enables opportu-
nities for political participation by means of formal procedures of voting, lobbying and standing for
office or in more spontaneous “acts of citizenship” and political mobilizations in civil society.”4 In
either case, citizenship, as a contemporary social norm, has the dual nature of being both inclusive
and exclusive. On the one hand, citizenship exercises its inclusive function by legally protecting
human rights and through the citizens’ commitment as community members. Describing this, T.H
Marshall states that “there is a kind of basic human equality associated with the concept of full
membership of a community,” which is an ideal of citizenship.5 However, in fact, the actualization
of the ideal of citizenship has always been incomplete.6 Across the world, the vulnerable – the
unemployed, females and the lower-class – have not always been guaranteed the social conditions
for equal status and socio-political worth. The vulnerable have often been excluded and disadvan-
taged, regardless of their possession of citizenship.7 Nevertheless, those who have citizenship are at
least technically under the legal protection of human rights, unlike the stateless. Citizenship endows
substantive basic rights to those who are entitled to be citizens: the right to nutrition, education,
employment, health care, civil rights (e.g. right to vote, right to a fair trial and protection of the
individual sphere of free agency) and political rights (e.g. right to elect representatives, stand as
candidates in elections, direct participatory rights that empower them to express opinions freely
through accessing information and conversing with others).8 Granting these rights to its citizens, a
state claims its sovereignty by determining the limits of citizenship and exercising territorial con-
trol, due to a nation’s right to determine the “structure and form of mode of collective life.”9
While citizenship grants benefits to those who are eligible to receive protection, exercise political
empowerment and experience social inclusion, it excludes those who do not fall into the category

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 3

of citizens. The inclusive nature of citizenship controls community membership by drawing lines
between “us” and “others,” and functions as a means to privilege citizens and exclude non-citi-
zens.10 Citizenship limits the protection of human rights to certain people, as well as access to
social and civil benefits, and impacts non-citizens’ survival in and integration into a society.11 A
state, due to a nation’s right to determine the “structure and form of mode of collective life,”
claims its own sovereignty by determining the limits of citizenship and exercising territorial con-
trol.12 Michael Walzer explains the concept of self-determination by describing that a state is “con-
stituted by the union of people and government, and it is the state that claims against all other
states the twin rights of territorial integrity and political sovereignty”.13 Ultimately, the traditional
norms of national sovereignty and the claim of community not only produce but also validate the
exclusion of those without citizenship.14

The loss of the “right to belong”

Of the various socially marginalized immigrant groups, stateless people are one of the most vulner-
able. Their rights are threatened and denied under a social structure that excludes those without a
political membership. A stateless person is defined as “a person who is not considered as a national
by any State under the operation of its law”.15 This definition applies in both migration and non-
migration contexts. Some stateless persons may never have crossed an international border (e.g.
persons who were born to stateless parents) while other stateless persons are migrants who should
be eligible for refugee status or complementary protection (e.g. as asylum seekers). The latter, once
they apply for refugee status or another complementary status for legal protection and have their
case accepted, are granted a certain form of political membership and subsequent rights, although
the protection of such rights has been partial and incomplete.16
Moreover, there are cases when stateless people are rejected from any form of political member-
ship, which prevents them from having any rights.17 Although two primary remedies, repatriation
and naturalization, were suggested by nation-states in order to rid them of their stateless status,
there are cases when both of these remedies have failed.18 North Koreans who reside in China are
an example of this, as they are subject to persecution when being repatriated to North Korea and
the Chinese government refuses to grant them any type of political membership (instead deporting
them back to North Korea if they are identified). They cannot retain North Korean citizenship once
they leave North Korea, as the North Korean regime makes it illegal to leave the country without
state permission and it refuses to provide the protections of citizenship to North Korean escapees.19
Nation-states’ failure to address the status of stateless persons has led to their lack of legal pro-
tections from a national government. This causes the stateless to be an underprivileged and right-
less group.20 In addition to their loss of civil and political rights, stateless persons are deprived of
the “right to belong to any community.” No legal protections exist for them in their country of resi-
dence or in any country.21 These “un-citizens” are treated more harshly in receiving countries than
those with the legal status of full citizenship. They are oppressed compared not only to those with
high socio-economic and political statuses but also compared to marginalized citizens in terms of
both income and participation in the labour market. The stateless experience extreme inequality and
subordination in society.22 They are “the most visible symbol of the lack of human rights” in host
countries. In most cases, they are without legal recourse to international human rights protections,
and even when they have legal recourse, it is not effectively actualized.23

Benhabib's concept of cosmopolitanism

Seyla Benhabib, in many of her famous works including Dignity in Adversity and The Rights of
Others, argues that the human rights violations of stateless people arise from the exclusionary

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

4 Sil Yoon

nature of political membership. This supports her arguments for a more cosmopolitan notion of
membership based on a concept of global interdependence. Benhabib’s position is based on her cri-
tique of John Rawls’ theory of justice. She states that Rawls’ theory of domestic and international
justice does not include cross-border movement and the position and entitlements of refugees and
asylum seekers, and therefore ignores cosmopolitan rights. Rawls, in Political Liberalism, envisions
a democratic society as a “complete” and “closed” social system that each human being is born
into and lives within.24 He assumes the “state-centric model of territorially delimited nations, with
fairly closed and well-guarded borders”25 in which a person has “a qualified right to limit immigra-
tion.”26 For Benhabib, Rawls’ theory departs significantly from the notion of cosmopolitanism in
which all individuals are moral agents in the international world. Rawls sees individuals as “mem-
bers of peoples” of “bounded communities” where each group of people or nation are distinguished
from another.27 He stands against open borders, arguing that the boundaries of states protect the
political culture and constitutional principles of a people group. He conceives of immigrants as
“aliens” who are unlikely to be integrated into their host countries.28 Although to a certain degree
boundaries are needed to protect national security, the fundamental exclusion of migrants underly-
ing Rawls’ theory cannot accomplish a vision of global justice where every individual can exercise
political participation as a moral agent. Rawls’ vision of a political society provides the grounding
for an exclusive society where migrants, not to mention the stateless, are undesirable and are often
criminalized and dehumanized under the military-based border control of state sovereignty.29
Opposed to Rawlsianism, Benhabib argues for a cosmopolitan vision of justice that respects
every human being as a moral agent whose rights should be claimed and protected. For Benhabib,
cosmopolitanism involves the “recognition that human beings are moral persons entitled to legal
protection in virtue of the rights that accrue to them not as nationals, or members of an ethnic
group, but as human beings as such”.30 The cosmopolitan vision pursues an inclusive notion of
membership that defines individuals as members of humanity and of a global dialectic community.
This transcends their membership in any organized political community that generally has rules
governing clear distinctions between insiders and outsiders. Benhabib argues that the world has
become one community with universal interests and needs. Therefore, we are required to promote a
planetary level of interdependence and global dialogue with mutual understanding and tolerance,
beyond mere communication.31 As members of a global community, all human beings – including
the socially vulnerable who do not fall within the boundary of the nation-state, such as refugees,
asylum seekers and stateless people – are worthy of respect and can claim their needs and rights as
moral agents. This vision can lead to a community of solidarity that transcends global capitalism
and ethnocentrism, values that lead to the “privatization and segmentation of interest communities
and the weakening of standards of public justification through the rise of private logic of norm gen-
eration, where the entitlement to democratic participation remains a longing for refugees and other
migrants”.32
It is important to note that Benhabib’s emphasis on the recognition of common ground between
different cultures and the necessity of cross-cultural understanding does not neglect particular and
concrete local contexts under the name of universal human rights. Rather, she stresses that this
common ground should be applicable to specific contexts, particularly those of marginalized popu-
lations including women and the stateless. Benhabib argues that the cosmopolitan vision criticizes
any social reality which discriminates against the marginalized and provides guidance for moral
practice. She then stresses that, in order to establish cosmopolitan norms, it is necessary to be atten-
tive to the particular contexts and vulnerabilities of each local group. This is needed to find the val-
ues common to different cultures through “local contextualization, interpretation and
vernacularization.”33
Benhabib further states that cosmopolitan norms can be realized only when the juridical practice
of such norms in the legal system is established. She argues that an individual human being should
be considered “not only as a being worthy of moral respect but as having a legal status as well that

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 5

ought to be protected by international law.”34 Cosmopolitanism never denies the role and signifi-
cance of the national norms that protect citizens and the security of a nation. Benhabib argues that
cosmopolitanism, rather, calls for the establishment of universal norms that would “take precedence
over all existing legal orders” and would bind the actions and the wills of sovereign legal and polit-
ical entities.35 Transnational norms, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should be
more than merely a declaration of principle. They should be able to function as a binding law that
has mechanisms for enforcement. In most countries, due to governments’ insufficient implementa-
tion of policies regarding migration, migrants are victimized and mistreated in their employment.
Cosmopolitan norms should be able to provide socially vulnerable populations legal recourse for
their human rights. Juridical social guarantee of cosmopolitan norms will overcome the exclusion
of stateless and right-less populations in the face of transnational migrations and let the stateless
become “social participants” rather than “mere observers.”36

CASE STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OF THE STATELESS: THE

TRAFFICKING OF NORTH KOREAN STATELESS WOMEN IN CHINA

In this section, I will explore the case of North Korean stateless women who reside in China and
who are victims of human trafficking. This will demonstrate how the exclusionary function of citi-
zenship intensifies the violation of their human rights.

North Koreans' status as stateless in China

A number of North Korean escapees temporarily reside in third countries – including China, Mon-
golia, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam – in order to make enough money and facilitate their ultimate
escape to South Korea. The majority of these escapees go to China through marriages or illegal
employment (IM, 2014).37
During their stay in China, North Koreans are stateless people without nationality or other type
of political membership in any country, and therefore they lack human rights. Although North
Koreans who reside in China are technically eligible to be granted refugee status in China, the
Chinese government’s refusal to grant them refugee status forces them to remain stateless and
excludes them from the law. The Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “owing
to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of
a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is
unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that coun-
try.”38 (1951 Refugee Convention, Article 1A[2]). China designates North Korean escapees as
“economic migrants” who fled solely for financial reasons and who will return to their country of
origin once they secure their financial needs.39 (The North Korean Refugee Crisis, supra 40).
However, the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur reports that North Koreans, who either reside
in North Korea or fled to China and were repatriated back to North Korea, are subject to persecu-
tion and direct threats of persecution.40 The report convincingly grounds the “well-founded fear”
of persecution for North Koreans who reside in China, and thus it provides them with the legal
qualifications for refugee status.41 Nevertheless, the Chinese government’s denial of this eligibility
drives North Koreans to be stateless and to be excluded from any legal protections in China. Even
when a North Korean woman gets married to a Chinese or Korean-Chinese man, she is not
granted the status of a legal migrant. China’s policy regarding North Koreans in China supports
the unconditional deportation of North Koreans, rather than providing them with the permission to
reside in China.42

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

6 Sil Yoon

North Korean women's involvement in human trafficking in China

Of all of the North Korean stateless people in China, North Korean trafficked women are one of
the most vulnerable groups of people. Their experience of human rights deprivations is intensified
by their lack of political membership.
Human trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, transportation, or transfer of persons” for the
purpose of exploitation, accompanied by threats, the use of force or other types of deception, coer-
cion, abduction or the abuse of power over the victim. It involves the giving and receiving of pay-
ments to have control over the victim.43 The trafficking of women for sexual exploitation – the
most common type of human trafficking – has been a growing international concern for the last fif-
teen years, particularly with the increase of migration and loosened national borders.44 It concerns
the global community as it involves serious human rights violations including murder, rape, torture,
kidnapping and abuse.45 Moreover, human trafficking is linked not only to individual but also to
domestic and transnational organized crime and sex trafficking is one of the major sources of
profit-making for organized crime.46
North Korean women residing in China are increasingly the victims of cross-border trafficking.
A growing number of North Koreans have migrated to China illegally since the mid-1990s in order
to improve their socio-economic situation before settling in South Korea.47 The primary factor con-
tributing to their vulnerability to trafficking is the situation of economic fragility in North Korea.
Although all North Koreans are suffering under the economic turmoil that has existed since the
mid-1990s, North Korean females experience more severe economic hardships as they tend to have
more poorly paid positions than males.48
In addition, the high rate of gender imbalance in China and the insufficient number of marriage-
able women has led Chinese men to seek brides without Chinese ethnicity or heritage, including
North Korean brides, through traffickers.49 In particular, rural areas in China have a serious short-
age of women due to women’s economic migration to cities. Chinese men in rural areas who are
not able to afford the expensive bride “fee” to marry a Chinese woman often seek North Korean
trafficked brides who are more cost-effective.50
The final primary factor that facilitates the trafficking of North Korean women into China is the
growth of sex-related businesses in China’s cities and the incapability of the local women to work
in the successful businesses in the cities due to their lack of specialized training. The traffickers
take advantage of this context by recruiting North Korean refugees and connecting them to “buy-
ers” in China, making significant profits. The final “buyers,” either Chinese husbands or owners of
a sex-related businesses, also find it cost-effective to exploit the women’s vulnerable status, gener-
ally paying/giving them little or nothing.51

The tricks of trafficking

My interview results revealed that trafficking into forced or consensual marriage and trafficking into
forced labour are two major types of trafficking faced by North Korean women in China, both of
which are abusive and exploitive. Five of my eight interviewees shared about their experiences of
being trafficked through deception or fraud for marriage, and that they did so as a means to sur-
vive. Ms. A stated that she was kidnapped by a broker who had assisted her to cross the border
into China and that she was pressured to marry a Chinese man.52 She stated that the broker threat-
ened her with his intention to inform the Chinese officials of her stateless status, unless she was
obedient to him. At the same time, he lured her with the promise of better living conditions in the
marriage.53 Ms. B and Ms. G also shared experiences of being trafficked by brokers who demanded
a great amount of money as compensation for their help and who pressured them into marriages.54

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 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 7

The interviews demonstrated brokers’ deceptive tricks which abused the women’s stateless statuses
and their needs for food and shelter.
Despite some cases when the line between forced and voluntary marriage is clearly distinguished,
the line between coerced and voluntary marriage is often blurred, as marriage can be a tool for sur-
vival for the women. Ms. L stated that although she was aware of her trafficker’s deceptive pro-
mise of a better life, she thought that it would be “a million times more secure physically and
emotionally” than living alone in China without money and shelter (Ms. L, Interview with Author,
December 14, 2017). Ms. B and Ms. E also believed that marriage to a Chinese or Korean-Chinese
man was as inevitable, the best way to feed and house themselves and to avoid immigration crack-
downs from Chinese officials.55 These responses reveal that the “forced” aspect of trafficking into
marriage can be ambiguous, and that marriage can be a combination of both voluntary and involun-
tary decisions by the women to fulfil their needs and to survive.
In addition, three of my interviewees shared their accounts of being trafficked into forced labour
through brokers or job recruiters in China. All three of them stated that they were trafficked to
work in the sex industry – Ms. O and Ms. E in decadent entertainment establishments and Ms. T
in a brothel. Voluntary and involuntary elements are also combined here, as in the case of traffick-
ing into marriage. Ms. E stated that her decision to work was “both inevitable and tempting”, due
to her desperate financial situation. She stated that after realizing the difficulty of obtaining official
employment due to her statelessness, she did not have another option to support herself and her
family who had been left behind in North Korea.56 Nevertheless, all of my three interviewees stated
that, most of the time, they were paid far less than they had worked for and part of their income
was taken by the traffickers, using the threat of deportation. These interviews demonstrate the
exploitative nature of trafficking into forced labour that the victims experience.

The victims' experiences of human rights violations and their statelessness as an

underlying cause

North Korean women’s experiences of trafficking reveals the types of human rights that can be vio-
lated. Most fundamentally, as stateless people, they are deprived of the right to nationality/political
membership. In addition to exclusion from political and civil rights, their stateless status excludes
them from legal recourse in any unjust situation. Ms. T explained her “life without the right to
have rights,” by describing the reality of the stateless in China. She explained that she did not even
have a minimal form of legal recourse when she received unfair treatment in the workplace and
that she always feared arrest by Chinese officials and deportation. She stated that when her teenage
daughter was killed due to abusive treatment in her workplace, she could not even have access to
her daughter’s corpse due to her employer’s threats. She also could not report the death to the gov-
ernment or other organizations as she lacked any legal recourse as a stateless person (Ms. T, Inter-
view with Author, December 12, 2017). Her case reveals the insecure status of North Korean
stateless people where their rights cannot be claimed.
In addition, victims of trafficking are deprived of their right to be free from torture and/or cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment or unjust punishment, as they are subject to discrimination,
exploitation and abuse, both at home and in the workplace. Each of my eight interviewees shared
their experiences of insults, physical violence and sexual harassment from their employers and Kor-
ean or Korean-Chinese husbands. Ms. G stated that the dehumanizing treatment she underwent
from her husband in China was “incurably shaming and traumatic.” She said that it involved verbal
violence, insulting her status as an escapee, as a woman, as a poor person, and as a North Korean,
as well as physical harassment and assault. (Ms. G, Interview with Author, December 9, 2017). All
of my interviewees stressed the long-lasting impact of their abuse by sharing their experiences of
ongoing suffering even after settling in South Korea. This arises from deep emotional pain

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8 Sil Yoon

connected to shame, guilt and resentment, as well as from the physical impacts of the violence they
experienced.
The mistreatment of the women in the workplace particularly reveals the denial of their right not
to be submitted to slavery, servitude and forced labour or bonded labour, as well as their rights to
just and favourable work conditions. The unjust nature of their work conditions was revealed by
the interviewees’ experiences of being over-worked and underpaid. Ms. O described a situation
when her wages were often withheld with threats from her employer of reporting her status to the
government, in addition to physical violence. (Ms O. Interview with Author, 12 December 2017).
The victims, as women, also suffer from the deprivation of their maternal rights. The intervie-
wees shared the realities of a number of North Korean women, who, when bringing their children
from North Korea with them, are not able to live with them if they get married to a Chinese or
Korean-Chinese man who rejects the idea. If the children are sent to live with people who are abu-
sive and who mistreat them, not only the mothers’ rights to maternity but also the children’s human
rights are denied and violated. Ms. T described her loss of her daughter whom she had brought
from North Korea when her Chinese husband sold her daughter without her permission. In the case
of Ms. H, her Chinese husband forcefully sold their son, and Ms. H later learned that her son suf-
fered malnutrition and abuse from his new parents. Both of these interviewees said that they were
also under constant threat from the traffickers who had sold them to their Chinese husbands. Once
again, the traffickers menaced the women with their statelessness. In addition to the interviewees’
loss of maternal rights, their children were deprived of their rights to associate with their parents as
well as to health care, physical protection and education. (Ms. T and Ms. H, Interview with Author,
December 12, 2017.)
The underlying cause of the victims’ experiences of mistreatment is their stateless status and their
consequent lack of institutional recourse to aid their situations. As they have a hard time finding an
official job due to their statelessness, they seldom have options other than becoming involved in
trafficking to secure food and shelter. Their stateless status is also abused, as they are subject to
constant threats from traffickers and husbands that they might be exposed to law enforcement and
experience repatriation, unless they remain subordinate. Their statelessness is a weakness that the
traffickers/husbands misuse and take advantage of.

Inadequate social responses to the issues of political membership, trafficking and

human rights violations

The human rights violations of North Korean stateless women are caused and intensified by North
Korea and China’s pursuit of their own political interests in dealing with the trafficking issue, as
well as international society’s passive efforts to oppose them. The North Korean government does
not acknowledge the occurrence of human trafficking along the North Korea-China border. It insists
that human trafficking is forbidden in North Korea, institutionally as well as legally, and does not
exist. (Protection Project, “North Korea,” http://www.protectionproject.org/report/nk.doc.) Indeed,
the very limited information on the issue justifies the government’s denial and leads to public igno-
rance. (Bulman, 2004). In addition, as addressed earlier, the Chinese government continues to deny
its responsibility to improve the trafficking issue by not acknowledging North Korean escapees as
refugees. Under the 1986 repatriation agreement with North Korea, China has been maintaining its
stance of forceful deportation of North Koreans back to North Korea. (2002, 8-11).
Moreover, the North Korean female trafficking problem has not been sufficiently recognized or
problematized by broader international society. The United States government has continually con-
demned North Korea’s minimal anti-trafficking standards, but has not actually penalized North
Korea for human trafficking or actively sought the improvement of the issue.57 With regards to the
Chinese government’s labelling of North Korean migrants as “economic migrants”, rather than

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 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 9

political refugees, the U.S. government has been taking an ambiguous position (Hun-Loon). While
it seems to have adopted the claim of the Chinese government in the 2000 U.S. Department of
State Human Rights Report, it raises the possibility of the North Koreans being considered refugees
in other reports (Korean Observer 46,1). When it comes to the United Nations, although it has
attempted to investigate North Korean migrants in China, its requests for information have been
rejected by the Chinese government. North Korea’s continual denial of the existence of human traf-
ficking and refusal of access for UN employees to study the issue has restrained the UN’s pressure
on North Korea regarding the trafficking issue ().
The minimal and inadequate social responses to the trafficking issue of North Korean women
show that even the growing international awareness of the issue and of the human rights of the
refugees have not led to active pressure on the issue of trafficking or transformation of political
and juridical practices.

The value of cosmopolitanism for the human rights protections of north korean
stateless women

Benhabib’s notion of cosmopolitanism has value in that it problematizes the exclusive nature of cit-
izenship and supports calls for the human rights protections of trafficked North Korean stateless
women. As cosmopolitanism defines individuals as members of humanity prior to being members
of a nation-state, it necessitates the establishment of more inclusive norms for belonging. Cos-
mopolitanism presents North Korean trafficked women in China as members of the global commu-
nity who have a shared need for dignity, social equality and human rights protections. In the
current “bounded” society, as per Rawls’ term, each country’s pursuit of its own political interests
causes the women to lack political membership and to remain as helpless victims whose stateless
status is abused and whose human rights are denied. However, cosmopolitanism can help to criti-
cise the human rights violations that are faced by these women not only in an interpersonal dimen-
sion (referring to the traffickers/husbands’ abuse of the women’s stateless statuses), but also from a
systemic dimension. With regard to the latter, cosmopolitanism can problematize the exclusive nat-
ure of state sovereignty from which trafficked stateless women are demonized as offenders against
the “integrity of the border” and portrayed as threats to national security.58
Opposing socio-structural injustice, the vision of cosmopolitanism can contribute to recognizing the
specific harms experienced by trafficked stateless women. This includes the mistreatment and human
rights violations they undergo, particularly in relation to their stateless statuses and the socio-structural
and socio-political dynamics involved in the harm. Rejecting injustice, the cosmopolitan vision can
function as the foundational ground that necessitates the creation of a more “embracing” society
where every member, including trafficked stateless women, is respected and valued. Furthermore, this
vision can aid the women’s social integration and can contribute to transforming them from “victims”
and “aliens” into “moral agents” and “social participants” in the global community.
Furthermore, as a practical way to realize its vision of a more inclusive notion of belonging, cos-
mopolitanism urges the juridical implementation of new norms and institutional changes. Trafficked
stateless women can exert moral claims and their human rights can be protected only when they
have legal guarantees. In promoting this, the cosmopolitan vision, with its emphasis on a global
level of interdependence, necessitates an international level of cooperation. Since the interests and
needs of various countries are involved in the trafficking issue, global society’s cooperative efforts
are essential for institutional changes to be realized.
In terms of possible institutional changes, it is first necessary for the North Korean government
to acknowledge the existence of human trafficking of North Korean women and admit its oppres-
sive nature. The government would need to sign the UN Trafficking Protocol to show its willing-
ness to protect its citizens from abuse and exploitation, particularly from citizens of other

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10 Sil Yoon

countries.59 China should also sign the UN Trafficking Protocol as a way to combat Chinese citi-
zens’ involvements in trafficking. It should not prioritize its 1986 repatriation agreement with North
Korea but rather encourage North Korea to raise its anti-trafficking consciousness. It also should
officially classify North Koreans in China as refugees and discontinue their deportation.60 The U.S.
government and the UN, instead of taking aggressive action, should support state-sponsored dia-
logue with China and North Korea in order to pursue proactive solutions to trafficking and human
rights violations, which would enhance public awareness of the issues. South Korea also should
play a significant role in encouraging dialogue with North Korea and China on the issue of traffick-
ing. This can be initiated by providing economic assistance and incentives for the countries’ estab-
lishment and implementation of anti-trafficking policies. South Korea should provide enhanced
support for North Koreans living in South Korea who are physically and emotionally suffering
from their past experiences of human trafficking.61
Practical challenges may arise when governmental organizations interact with each other in estab-
lishing effective laws and policies, as the political interests and diplomatic concerns of each country
may conflict in their decision-making. In combating and reducing this limitation, international non-
governmental organizations as well as religious organizations can play a significant role. Interna-
tional human rights NGOs can cooperate with the Human Rights Commission on a practical level
by conducting human rights inspections of suspected countries, bringing cases of human rights vio-
lations to the Commission, and forming international public discourse.62 Religious organizations
can contribute significantly by critiquing the degrading nature of the human rights violations faced
by the victims, problematizing the exclusionary nature of the contemporary notion of belonging,
advocating, establishing and implementing universal norms of human rights, and collaborating with
governmental and non-governmental international human rights organizations.63

CONCLUSION

A cosmopolitan vision can contribute to problematizing the divided and exclusive nature of citizen-
ship and its influence on human rights violations against stateless people. It helps to promote a more
inclusive understanding of membership by recognizing stateless people as members of a global com-
munity who share the universal values of dignity and equality, and who have specific needs due to
particular forms of vulnerability. This vision can lead global society to be attentive to the human
rights violations faced by North Korean trafficked stateless women in China and to recognize the sig-
nificance of restoring their lost dignity and equality. Furthermore, for this strengthened awareness to
lead to actual human rights protections for socially marginalized people, cosmopolitanism necessitates
a global level of solidarity and interdependence that can promote broader systemic changes. The
juridical and institutional level of reformation will be realized when the international community –
both governmental and non-governmental organizations – acknowledges its responsibility to provide
the victims with legal recourse for human rights protections. The global community must also make
cooperative efforts to generate proactive solutions, including improving international immigration
laws. Through continual efforts, the trafficked women, whose experiences of victimization and demo-
nization are magnified by their lack of political membership, will be able to transform from passive
victims into “social participants” who can claim their human rights as active agents and as survivors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Portions of this work are part of my dissertation as a requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree from the Graduate Theological Union.

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 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 11

NOTES

1. Bosniak, L., 2009 “Citizenship, Noncitizenship, and the Transnationalization of Domestic Work” in S.
Benhabib and J. Resnik (Eds) Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender New York
University Press, New York and London: 127.
2. Ibid.
3. Thomas H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class” in Citizenship and Social Class, eds. Thomas H. Mar-
shall and Tom Bottomore (London: Pluto Press, 1992), 6.
4. Engin Isin, “Theorizing Acts of Citizenship” in Acts of Citizenship, eds. Engin Isin and Greg Nielson
(London: Zed Books, 2008), 15-38.
5. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class,” 6
6. David Lockwood. “Civic Integration and Class Formation.” The British Journal of Sociology 47.3 (1996):
531–550, 536.
7. Lydia Morris. “Citizenship and Human Rights: Ideals and Actualities.” The British Journal of Sociology
63.1 (2012): 39-46, 40.
8. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class,” 8.
9. Kiran Benerjee,“Re-theorizing Human Rights through the Refugee: On the Interrelation between Democ-
racy and Global Justice.” Refuge 27.1 (2010), 24-35, 29.
10. Todd Sharon, “Like Travellers Navigating an Unknown Terrain”: Seyla Benhabib on Rights and the Bor-
ders of Belonging.” Utbilding & Demokrati 15.1 (2006): 109-118, 111
11. Ibid.
12. Benerjee, “Re-theorizing Human Rights through the Refugee: On the Interrelation between Democracy
and Global Justice,” 29.
13. Michael Walzer, “The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics.” Philosophy and Public
Affairs 9.3 (1980), 212
14. Ibid.
15. 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, Article 1(1).
16. Stateless Persons. Geneva, 2014, 10.
17. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).
18. Ibid.
19. North Korea 101, The People’s Challenges. https://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/learn-nk-challenges/
20. Ibid., 285-287.
21. Ibid., 291-293
22. Nash, K. “Between Citizenship and Human Rights.” Sociology 43.6 (2009): 1067–1083.
23. Ibid.
24. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (NY: Columbia University Press, 1993), 41.
25. Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 74.
26. John Rawls, The Laws of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 39.
27. Benhabib, The Rights of Others, 75-76.
28. Ibid., p. 89.
29. Ibid.
30. Seyla Benhabib, Cosmopolitanism, and Democracy: Affinities and Tensions. Lecture to the German Bun-
destag, delivered on March 13, 2009, 247
31. Ibid.
32. Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press,
2011), 94-99.
33. Seyla Benhabib, “Claiming Rights across Borders: International Human Rights and Democratic Sover-
eignty,” American Political Science Review. 103.4 (2009): 691-704, 691.
34. Seyla Benhabib, Reclaiming Universalism: Negotiating Republican Self-Determination and Cosmopolitan
Norms. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at the University of California at Berkeley,
March 15-19, 2004, 114.
35. Ibid.
36. Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity, 132.
37. Ibid., 73.

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12 Sil Yoon

38. Seyla Benhabib, “Cultural Complexity, Moral Interdependence, and the Global Dialogical Community” in
Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover (Eds), Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human
Capabilities, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995: 239.
39. Mi-Joo Im, Issues on Human Rights and Refugees of North Korea: Focusing on Human Security Perspec-
tive. Master’s Dissertation in Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (2014), 68.
40. The Refugee Convention, Article 1A (2).
41. The North Korean Refugee Crisis, supra 39.
42. The Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, Human Rights Resolution 2005/1, The report of
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (E/CN.4/2005/34).
43. Chang-Sig Park, The State Responsibility of China for the North Korean Refugees. A Master’s Thesis for
The University of Oslo, 2008, 47.
44. Won-Woong Lee et al., The Study of Human Rights Violations of Children of North Korean Refugees
Who Reside Abroad (Seoul: National Human Rights Commission, 2012), 123. One of the various socio-
political interests underlying China’s reluctance to offer North Koreans refugee status is its long-term
agreement with North Korea to send back North Korean migrants to their home country. Violating the
agreement might negatively affect their international relationship. (Won-Hee Kim, Solutions to Issues
regarding North Korean Refugees according to the International Laws: Focusing on North Korean Refu-
gees who Reside in Third Countries. The Dissertation of Ajoo University Law School, 2004, 36).
45. Trafficking in Persons in Asia, “Definitions.” http://www.tipinasia.info/KH/def-info.php?l.
46. J.N. Ezeilo, Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cul-
tural Rights, including the Right to Development: Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on traffick-
ing in persons, especially women and children. United National General Assembly Human Rights Council
Tenth Session Agenda Item 3, 2009.
47. O.N.I. Ebbe and D.K. Das, Global Trafficking in Women and Children (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press,
2007).
48. M.P. Roth, Organized Crime (NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010).
49. Kathleen Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border: The Trafficking of North Korean Women into China.”
The SAIS Review of International Affairs 26.1 (2006): 131-141, 131.
50. John Pomfret, “North Korea Faces New Crisis as Economic Reforms Falter,” 28 January 2003, http://
www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/congress/2004_h/cha-testimony040302.pdf.
51. Protection Project, “North Korea,” http://www.protectionproject.org/report/nk.doc.
52. K. Chin, Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States (Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press, 1999).
53. E. Kim et al., "Cross-Border North Korean Women Trafficking and Victimization between North Korea
and China: An Ethnographic Case Study." International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 37 (2009):
154-169, 162.
54. Protection Project, “North Korea,” http://www.protectionproject.org/report/nk.doc.
55. Erica Bulman, “U.N. Human Rights Body Warns North Korea Not Exempt from Observing Human
Rights,” Associated Press Worldstream, 27 January 2004.
56. Human Rights Watch, 8-11.
57. Muico, “An Absence of Choice: The Sexual Exploitation of North Korean Women in China,” 13.
58. Hun-Loon Kim, “Reporting North Korean Refugees in China: The Case of the U.S. Department of State
Human Rights Country Reports.” Korean Observer 46(1): 117-144, 138.
59. Ibid., 138-9.
60. BBC News, “North Korea Rejects UN Food Aid,” 23 September 2005.
61. Marinella Marmo and Evan Smith, “Female Migrants: Sex, Value and Credibility in Immigration Control”
in Borders and Crime: Pre-Crime, Mobility and Serious Harm in an Age of Globalization, eds. Jude
McCulloch and Sharon Pickering, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills and New York: 2012, 63.
62. Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border: The Trafficking of North Korean Women into China,” 137-8.
63. Ibid., 138.

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 Cosmopolitanism: A North Korean Case Study 13

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© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM