Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea A/RES/79/181 under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; 21 (vi) All-pervasive and severe restrictions, including an absolute monopoly on information and total control over organized social life, further tightened by newly enacted laws, namely the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture, the Youth Education Guarantee Law and the Law on Protecting the Pyongyang Cultural Language of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, both online and offline, on the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or through any other media of one’s choice, the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with individual privacy, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or imprisonment of individuals exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and expression and religion or belief, and the right of everyone, including women, to take part without unreasonable restriction in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives, of their country; (vii) Violations of economic, social and cultural rights, exacerbated by the continued closure by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of its borders, which have led to food insecurity, severe hunger, malnutrition, widespread health problems and other hardship for the population in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in particular for women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons and prisoners throughout the entire penal system and in all places of detention; (viii) Violations of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all women and girls, including unequal access to employment and discriminatory regulations; as well as, in particular, the creation of internal conditions that force women and girls to leave the country, making them extremely vulnerable to trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude or forced marriage, and their subjection to sexual and gender-based discrimination, including in the political and social spheres, as well as throughout the entire penal system, including through forced abortions, invasive body cavity searches and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence; (ix) Violations of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of children, in particular the continued lack of access to basic economic, social and cultural rights for many children, and in this regard notes the particularly vulnerable situation faced by, inter alia, returned or repatriated children, children without housing, children with disabilities, children whose parents are detained, deceased or otherwise absent, children living in detention or in institutions and children in conflict with the law, and further notes with concern the reports of harsh and disproportionate punishment inflicted upon children; (x) Violations of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities, especially violations involving the use of collective camps and coercive measures that target the rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and allegations of the possible use of persons with disabilities in medical testing, forced relocation to rural areas and separation of children with disabilities from their parents; __________________ 21 24-24223 Ibid., vol. 1465, No. 24841. 7/14