Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to his Department's report, Democratic People's Republic of Korea - Country of Concern, published on 12 March 2015, what steps the British Embassy in Pyongyang has taken to challenge widespread sexual abuse and domestic violence against women in that country.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) report on the human rights situation within the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), published 12 March, noted that “consistent reports suggest that sexual abuse and domestic violence is common [within the DPRK]”. During the DPRK’s 2014 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights at the UN in Geneva, the DPRK accepted 185 recommendations including several relating to women’s rights. Our officials recently met DPRK diplomats to discuss the progress the DPRK had made on implementing the accepted UPR recommendations and to request further information on steps the DPRK government was taking to address the recommendations.