Our partner, Voice of the Martyrs Korea (VOMK), said search and seizures by Chinese officials are on the increase for churches serving North Korean sex-trafficked women.
“The Chinese government’s continued crackdown on local churches across the country is well known, but its specific efforts against churches serving minority populations, like churches ministering to North Koreans in China’s north-east region, has largely escaped international notice,” said Dr Hyun Sook Foley of VOMK.
She said that during one recent raid a Chinese house church had all their Korean language Bibles confiscated. “All the North Korean women who had been attending that church were required by a state security official to show their faces every morning through their phone,” she said, adding that the women were restricted from travelling to other regions.
According to Dr Foley, Chinese authorities are now closely watching North Koreans who may have the intent to defect to South Korea and has renewed repatriations back to North Korea. “The Chinese authorities are seeking to isolate North Korean women from foreign influence by encouraging them not to interact with South Koreans or even ethnically Korean Chinese people.”
VOMK, which operates underground discipleship training programmes in the region for North Koreans, including sex-trafficked women married to Chinese men, emphasised that discipleship groups of sex-trafficked North Korean women led by the women themselves are the safest, most effective — and increasingly the only — means for North Korean sex-trafficked women to grow in their Christian faith.
Dr Foley continued: “It’s much harder for authorities to catch and stop individual North Korean women who are ministering to other North Korean women in their area, and Chinese officials are much less concerned about North Korean women interacting with other North Korean women.”
Sister ‘B’, who had been evangelised by another sex-trafficked woman trained by VOMK, said: “When I came to China, I felt a lot of sadness, pain and sorrow. I was always lonely, but my friend introduced me to this [discipleship group of North Korean sex-trafficked women] and I learned to sing hymns and received God’s grace. I learned many hymn songs, and I was able to express my troubled heart and pain to God in prayer, and I had peace in my heart. I will continue to give thanks to God and live my life believing in God alone.”
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