North Korean Waitresses’ Defection May Have Been Forced, U.N. Official Says

SEOUL, South Korea — A United Nations official on Tuesday called for an investigation into whether 12 North Korean waitresses were brought to South Korea against their will, saying that some had told him they had not known where they were going when they made the journey in 2016.

The 12 women and their manager left Ningbo, China, where they worked at a restaurant run by the North Korean government, in April 2016, arriving in South Korea two days later. The South’s government promptly announced their defection, which was the most sensational in years, involving a large group of people who, as workers abroad, belonged to the North Korean elite.

But the government’s account of the episode was disputed in May by the manager and four of the women. Interviewed by a South Korean news channel, those women said they had been brought to the South against their will and the manager said he had been pressured into doing so by South Korea’s intelligence agency.

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur, said Tuesday at a news conference in Seoul, the South’s capital, that some of the women who defected had confirmed part of that version of events in interviews with him. “From the information that I have received from some of them, they were taken to the Republic of Korea without knowing that they were coming here,” he said, using the official name of South Korea.

Ojea Quintana, speaking at the end of a nine-day trip to South Korea, referred to the women he interviewed as “victims,” adding that it was “the duty and responsibility” of the South Korean government to investigate their claims.

“When I say victims, I am implying that they were subject to some kind of deceit in regards to where they were going,” he said. “If they were taken against their will from China, that may be considered a crime.”

South Korea responded to Ojea Quintana by saying that the women had defected of their own free will. It has said that the women signed statements to that effect. South Korea also says all North Koreans who have come to the South since the 1990s, numbering more than 30,000, have done so voluntarily.

The case has become a problem for the government of President Moon Jae-in, who took office a year after the defection and has enthusiastically promoted better ties with North Korea. The North has insisted for more than two years that the South kidnapped the women and it has demanded their return.

The defection occurred during the presidency of Moon’s predecessor, Park Geun-hye, a conservative who was much more confrontational toward North Korea. Park was later impeached, removed from office and jailed over a corruption scandal.

Her government said the group defection indicated that North Korea’s elite — which includes those citizens trusted to work abroad — was becoming disillusioned with Kim Jong Un, the country’s young leader. South Korea took the unusual step of announcing the women’s defection the day after they arrived.

In the interview in May with the South Korean news channel JTBC, the women’s manager, Heo Kang Il, said he had conspired with South Korean intelligence officers to bring the women to the South. He said he told them they were being transferred to another restaurant in Southeast Asia. Like other North Korean workers abroad, the women were trained to obey their manager, who held their passports.

The women interviewed by JTBC said they did not realize where they were going until Heo took them to the South Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When they balked at entering, they said Heo threatened to tell North Korean authorities that the women often watched South Korean movies in China, a serious offense for North Korean workers abroad.

Heo said he had indeed made that threat. “I blackmailed them and told them to make a choice: ‘If you return home, you die, and if you follow me, you live,'” he said. “It was luring and kidnapping, and I know because I took the lead.”

Heo told JTBC that the South’s National Intelligence Service had timed the defection to rally conservative votes in parliamentary elections.

Neither Ojea Quintana nor JTBC has interviewed all 12 of the women. South Korean officials said that some of the women were wary of speaking in public because it could jeopardize their relatives in North Korea. These officials said that if some of the women returned to the North, those who stayed behind could be branded as genuine defectors and their families could suffer.

Ojea Quintana said the government should respect the women’s individual decisions about whether they wanted to return. The women interviewed by JTBC said they had struggled to adjust to life in South Korea and wanted to go back.