Image: Yonhap News
The United Nations has dismissed an appeal filed by 12 North Korean defectors, who claimed they were detained by the South Korean government after they fled from a North Korean restaurant in China more than four years ago.
According to a Voice of America report Thursday, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the dismissal comes after the fact that the 12 waitresses and their manager couldn't make the appeal themselves nor through a legal representative.
The 12 restaurant workers defected in April 2016 from a North Korean state-run restaurant in the Chinese city of Ningbo.
The manager later claimed Seoul’s National Intelligence Service was involved in the defection and the families of the women who fled filed an appeal with the UN in 2017, claiming they were being detained by the South Korean government.
The families said they had taken all possible legal steps in South Korea for the protection of the women's rights but their efforts were in vain.
South Korean government, at the time, argued that the families made no effort to confirm the defectors' wishes and cooperation before filing the appeal.
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