A/HRC/RES/55/21
(h)
Systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced
disappearance of persons, including those from other States Members of the United Nations,
on a large scale and as a matter of State policy;
2.
Urges the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to
acknowledge its crimes, abuses and human rights violations, in and outside of the country,
and to take immediately all steps necessary to end all such crimes, abuses and violations
through, inter alia, the implementation of relevant recommendations contained in the report
of the commission of inquiry and in General Assembly resolution 78/218, including but not
limited to the following steps:
(a)
Ensuring the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief and
the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and association, both online and offline,
including by permitting the establishment of independent newspapers and other media and
repealing or reforming all practices and laws suppressing the aforementioned rights,
including the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture, the Youth Education
Guarantee Law and the Law on Protecting the Pyongyang Cultural Language;
(b)
Ending discrimination against citizens, including State-sponsored
discrimination based on the songbun system, and taking immediate steps to ensure gender
equality and the full enjoyment by all women and girls of their human rights and the
protection of women and girls from all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based
violence;
(c)
Ensuring the right to freedom of movement, including the freedom to choose
one’s place of residence and employment;
(d)
Promoting equal access to food, including by allowing humanitarian access to
all persons in need and full transparency regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance
so that such assistance is provided to persons in vulnerable situations, including persons with
disabilities, older persons, individuals in detention, children, and women and girls, especially
those who are pregnant and lactating;
(e)
Allowing humanitarian organizations and humanitarian personnel to carry out
their activities, commencing with the immediate reopening of the national borders of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the delivery of urgently required humanitarian
goods, such as food, medicines and agricultural supplies;
(f)
Cooperating with the international community to respond constructively to all
offers of assistance to ensure the timely delivery and equitable distribution of sufficient
vaccine doses, and recognizing the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard
of physical and mental health and that access to vaccines is essential, including through the
entry of international staff and the prioritization of the shipment of life-saving humanitarian
assistance, in accordance with guidance and best practice provided by the World Health
Organization;
(g)
Halting immediately all human rights violations in the entire penal system and
in all places of detention, including in prison camps, re-education camps, labour training
camps, labour training centres, detention centres, holding centres and waiting rooms,
including the practice of forced labour and the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment or punishment and sexual and gender-based violence, dismantling all
political prison camps and releasing all political prisoners, immediately ceasing the practice
of the arbitrary and summary execution of persons in custody, including public executions,
and ensuring that justice sector reforms provide for protections for fair trials and due process;
(h)
Urgently resolving the issue of all persons who have been abducted or
otherwise forcibly disappeared and their descendants by clarifying their fate and
whereabouts, in good faith and with transparency, including by ensuring the realization of
their immediate return, and engaging in constructive dialogue with the parties concerned;
(i)
Ensuring the immediate resumption of the reunions of separated families
across the border, considering the advanced age of the family members concerned;
(j)
Abolishing immediately the practice of guilt-by-association punishment;
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