UN rapporteur urges efforts to address human rights problem of N. Korean women

Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and Elizabeth Salmon, the newly appointed U.N. special rapporteur for North Korea's human rights, shake hands at the foreign affairs ministry building, Aug. 31. Yonhap

The new U.N. special rapporteur for North Korea's human rights called Thursday for efforts to draw attention to the situation of women in the reclusive country.

Elizabeth Salmon raised the issue during the Korea Global Forum for Peace, hosted by South Korea's unification ministry in Seoul, as she vowed to try and engage with Pyongyang among other efforts to improve the country's human rights situation. She was on her first trip to Korea since assuming the post early last month.

"There are many other tasks, such as strengthening the prospects for accountability by hearing and reporting witnesses' and victims' accounts, highlighting and documenting difficult topics, such as the situation of women and girls," she said.

Salmon also stressed the need to enhance public awareness on the North's overall human rights situation.

"What we could do during these next months probably is to raise awareness of the situation in the DPRK," she added, using the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "We need to provide a voice, a face to highlight the situation there."

She met with Seoul's top diplomat Park Jin the previous day with a plan to meet with Unification Minister Kwon Young-se on Friday. (Yonhap)