May 21 (UPI) -- Activists, officials and defectors highlighted North Korean human rights violations at a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, with many directly tying Pyongyang's systemic abuses to its growing nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The meeting on the North's human rights violations, the first of its kind held at the General Assembly, featured testimonies by two escapees who shared harrowing stories of oppression and implored the world to hold North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accountable.
"Silence is complicity," said Kim Eun-joo, who was 11 years old when she fled with her mother and sister in 1999 to escape starvation in rural North Korea.
After crossing the Tumen River into China, Kim and her family faced years of human trafficking before finally making it to South Korea.
She pointed to North Korea's military cooperation with Russia, particularly its deployment of troops to aid Moscow in its war against Ukraine, as a "new kind of modern-day slavery."
