It is true that the escape lines have been made more difficult in recent times. The usual mode of escape was across the rivers in the north of the Korean Peninsula during the winter when the rivers froze over.

But one of the duties that was assigned to Kim Jong-un by his father during his father's lifetime was to go up to the border area. Reportedly he was shocked by the porous nature of the border, which was so defensive of the escape of so many people from North Korea. Therefore, both DPRK and China have built barriers that make it much more difficult to escape in that manner.

But when they do make it across, as a continuing stream does, then they often have to seek refuge and help from faith-based organizations from South Korea, which then can put them on the escape lines, rather similar to the way Canadian, British, and other soldiers in the Second World War were shepherded through France, down to the Pyrenees, and out into freedom.

If they go to Thailand, they're reasonably safe. Thailand will not send people back to North Korea. Laos, on the other hand, sent a whole planeload of young people, after they'd gone through their escape, back to North Korea in contravention of international refugee law.

I thank you for thinking outside the square. I think this is exactly what we should all be doing, because if you keep hitting your head on the P5, and the veto, and action in the Security Council, you may simply do damage to yourself and not much good for the Korean people.

One of the points that has been made to me in recent days is that countries like Australia, Canada, and the United States could possibly do some good for people who have gone through this tremendous ordeal to escape and who for one reason or another do not have refuge in another country for asylum. There are such people and I think it's fair to say that the figures show that Canada, which has a famous story of receiving and protecting refugees, the United States likewise, and Australia to some extent too have not been generous in the way they have welcomed North Korean refugees. The United States I think has only taken something like 130—a very small number.

South Korea, of course, has a right of citizenship. If you arrive, if you can get there, you have a right to be a citizen. For various reasons some people don't want to go there or can't go there and therefore seek refuge elsewhere.

That is something that this committee might care to consider, along the lines that you have suggested. I think that's a good idea. We should be motivated by respect for the people.

I've come here from Salzburg, where we had a global seminar. In the course of the seminar one of the speakers, exceptionally, put on the screen photographs taken by her during her time in North Korea. Some of the photographs were of Pyongyang, which show a surprisingly modern looking city, though very empty streets. But other photographs showed young children from North Korea dressed in very cheap-looking Chinese, but warm, wind cheaters and garments against the terrible cold of the Korean winter. As one looked at them and at the school children shown in the photographs, staring straight at you, as a western person looking at these people who are victims, you realized you cannot hate the people of North Korea. You certainly cannot hate the children and the youth of North Korea. They are themselves victims of very great wrongs.

It's important that we never lose sight of the people who are behind the geopolitical and human rights issues in the great chambers of the United Nations and even in this Parliament. People out there in Korea don't know we are meeting today and don't know we are talking about them. But it is a sign of the world we live in that we have sufficient love of people in a faraway country with terrible weapons at their disposal who are still human beings and who deserve and would expect if they knew that the United Nations, the world, Canada, Australia, and other countries would do what they could to alleviate the suffering.

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