North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Cathi Choi: How inter-Korean conflict harms women’s rights

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

This week, Cathi Choi, co-director of Women Cross DMZ, joins the podcast to discuss the group’s efforts to formally end the Korean War, reunite divided families and place women at the forefront of peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula. Cathi discusses the group’s latest report, “Women’s Rights Under the Division System in Korea,” and the political, […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NK News website the Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jaco Zwetsloot, and this episode was recorded via StreamYard on Saturday, the 22nd of March, Korea time, but still Friday, the 21st of March in the United States time where my guest is located. And my guest is Cathy Choi, or or Cathy Chair. Actually, which do

you prefer? Both are great. Great, okay. Cathy is the co-director of Women Cross DMZ or DMZ as I would say in Australia, a global movement dedicated to ending the Korean War, reuniting families, and ensuring women's leadership in peace-building efforts. Before taking on the leadership of Women Cross DMZ full-time, Cathy was a civil rights lawyer. You can find the organization's website at womencrossdmz.org and Cathy on social media at Women Cross DMZ, all one word, and Cathy S. Choi, all one word as well. We'll put those links in the show notes. Cathy, welcome on the NK News podcast. Thank you. So happy to be here. Okay. Your organization, Women Cross Teams, they've recently released the report Women's Rights Under the Division System in Korea.

Now, first of all, for our listeners who may not be familiar, what is a division system, how do you define that? Well, the term is really referring to the 80 years of ongoing division of the peninsula. And we wanted to make clear that we're addressing women's rights in that particular context of 80 years of what was once a unified nation. And we are borrowing the term specifically, I should cite Baek Nak Chung, who refers to this division system and the growing entrenchment of the divided Korean peninsula. And we wanted to take stock of what women's, so it's called, as you said, women's rights under the division system in Korea, because we wanted to take stock of what this ongoing

divided peninsula with little to no diplomatic engagement between the Koreas. And as you mentioned, I'm in the United States between the United States and North Korea, and also how this is shaped by all countries with stakes in the regions, including China, Japan, Russia, and the United States. So yeah, so that's where that term comes from. Okay. Now, in the introduction to the report, you write that all states with stakes in the region, including the ones you just mentioned, China, Japan, Russia, the United States, and the two Koreas, have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of a divided peninsula. Now, I remember hearing about that idea back in the 1990s

and I have to say, I don't find it to be a very persuasive argument. Why do you believe that to be the case? In whose interest is it that the two careers remain divided? Well, we certainly know it's not in the interests of many of the women we highlight here in this report. One of the categories of women's rights as affected by the ongoing division system is the separated families.

So we know that millions of Koreans were divided, myself, my own family also divided by the division and the ongoing US travel ban and then the lack of travel between the two Koreas. And so we wanted to center the voices of everyday people and specifically the effect that division separated families and we can get into the other categories as well as the landmines and the unexploded ordinance and then the Kijichon. But with the divided families, we see who really pays the costs of ongoing division. And then you get to the next question as you were pointing out of who and whose interest is it if it's not in the interest of these millions of Koreans and those who are continuing to be divided. And then even those who are not from divided families who would

just want to be able to see their homeland and motherland and be able to travel freely. And then we look to the geopolitical context and who benefits. I mean, when we see that the US ongoing military drills, ongoing 30,000 troops being sent to Korea, that sort of militarized approach does not lend itself towards reconciliation and overcoming of the division. And so in that, I mean, we can get into all of the different aspects of what militarism does for US economy, the US role with respect, building up alliance, the trilateral alliance with South Korea and Japan against China. And I think there, being US-based, I very much see how the US has a vested interest.

The US military and all those who profit from ongoing militarism have a very intense vested interest in the ongoing division of the peninsula. I wonder, the report, it makes a lot of about the how the division of Korea, as you say, disproportionately harms women and if you mentioned the concerns that this framing downplays the internal governance of either North or South Korea and human rights situation in favor of critiquing the fact of division itself? Well, I have to say, so this is new. So this is a, this is the, this is an ongoing, in fact, this is the critique. This is what I'm hearing for the kind of we're engaging in conversation for the first time. So my response is that to ask that

question in that way denies or seems to obscure. I mean, it just it's kind of obscuring who and what powers are the ones that are leading to the division system. And then, and it's trying to, I'm trying to wrap my head around the questions premise of what are the actors and what is the causality behind the division system, because I think that the report is, they're specifically tailored to the Korean governments and different governing bodies. And I think also this report is also tailored to audiences that are related to the United Nations and the human rights mechanisms there, which, you know, we can talk about the UDHR and all of the rights listed and how the six of those rights are tailored to social, cultural and economic rights. And how in order to address the current state of those rights and how they are or are not

being materialized in the current Korean political landscape, we have to address, of course, what the actions are of the Korean governments. And there is a reason why we make recommendations at the end about engaging diplomatically. And Elizabeth Salmon herself said, the special repertoire on North Korean human rights, she herself said that peace, development, human rights are all interrelated.

And so in order to improve the human rights of Korean people, Korean woman, we have to achieve peace and a state of geopolitical engagement and diplomacy between the two Koreas. So in fact, I don't know if I agree with actually the premise of the question of that. It's obscuring the actions of the two Korean

governments. In fact, it's trying to get us to adopt a more comprehensive approach to human rights so we can actually address how the two Korean governments can improve all human rights and specifically the social, cultural, and economic rights of Korean women. One of the report's arguments is that the Korean War remains unended and that militarization on the peninsula is a core cause of human rights violations, particularly for women, or particularly against women rather. However, it could be argued that militarization is a consequence rather than a cause, that security tensions persist mainly because North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and conduct missile tests,

and occasionally threaten to turn Seoul into a sea of fire. How do you see this relationship between security and rights? Well, I'd point you and others with those kinds of questions to Siegfried Hecker's work on hinge points. And again, this premise of causality of what preceded the development of North Korean nuclear weapons. And then of course, now we see with South Korea becoming a labeled as a sensitive country by the US Department of Energy due to its potential escalation of a bid for nuclearization. We see that this ongoing state of war has not led to denuclearization, has led to what Bruce Cummings and others have surmised the US policy in Korea as a failed policy, because we've missed many points of engagement and opportunity to head off potential escalation,

including nuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. So I would say that I absolutely think that security and rights are interrelated, but it depends on how we keep approaching this issue. If we keep approaching this issue by emphasizing, for example, the political rights within the UDHR framing, the political rights of individuals that often gets us to state sponsored violence, which of course is a very serious issue that should be treated with gravity

and addressed thoroughly. But at the same time, we can't ignore what this constant state of militarism and war has done for the social, cultural, and economic rights of individuals. And so that's why we're trying to offer a different starting point that can also be more holistic in understanding what leads to true security for human beings. I think we can all agree true security for human beings does not involve the dropping of multiple 500 pound bombs, as we saw just a few weeks ago at the village bordering the DMZ. It does not involve constant, permanent emergency militarized security state that we see in South Korea.

So I think that's what this report is trying to do is it's taking rights and security very seriously, but offering an expanded, more holistic approach to that question. Now, the significant discussion in your report about the negative impact of US military bases in South Korea, including, for example, their role in displacing people when bases are expanded. Now, it's often argued in South Korea, at least, that the presence of US troops is a deterrent to North Korean aggression. How do you address the view that US troops help to maintain stability rather than exacerbate human rights issues that would be worsened if there were to be open conflict between North and South Korea. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast Feed.

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