President Biden said, “Human rights will be at the heart of our foreign policy.” If human rights are really the goal of US foreign policy, a travel ban to North Korea is not a solution.
A girl who goes to school in North Korea near the South Korean border. The Biden administration has renewed a Trump-era travel ban on Americans to North Korea to prevent humanitarian aid to vulnerable populations. (Roman Harak / Flickr)
the Biden administration Claiming to center human rights on U.S. foreign policy while banning Americans from entering North Korea is like advocating pure abstinence sex education for contraception: both only exacerbate the problems they are supposedly trying to solve. In reality, the travel ban to North Korea undermines human rights by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching vulnerable populations, keeping families apart and acting as another barrier to diplomacy.
This September has the Biden administration renewed A Trump-era travel ban on Americans to North Korea. The State Department cited the “serious risk of arrest for US citizens and nationals” as the reason for extending the travel ban. Although the ban was originally introduced after the imprisonment and possible death of an American college student, the ban on US cooperation with North Korea harms and harms the people of North Korea in need of food aid.
Speaking at a press conference on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said called on August 31: “Human rights will be at the center of our foreign policy.” If human rights are really the goal of US foreign policy, a travel ban to North Korea is not the solution. Just as ensuring safe sexual activity is full sexual education and access to safe abortion services and other reproductive health options, not just abstinence education and abortion bans (if you look at you, Texas) the US is undermining human rights by extending the travel ban to North Korea. Both the reproductive rights attacks and the travel ban are just curtains of fog – abortion bans as a means of controlling the corpses of pregnant people and the travel ban as a means of continued militarism in the United States.
On the contrary, the ban freezes the work of many people to improve the situation on the ground in North Korea and, like pure abstinence sex education, ignores real solutions that have been shown to work. The ban prevents many NGOs from providing humanitarian aid to vulnerable populations in North Korea and from engaging in face-to-face exchanges to ease tensions.
Before the 2017 ban, Americans participated in exchanges like that historical crossing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea from South Korea. Other actions such as the New York Philharmonic’s visit to Pyongyang in 2008 and the reunification of long-separated families were hindered or inhibited by this policy.
Under current policy, it is almost impossible to obtain exemptions from the ban. If North Korea opens its borders after the pandemic is under control, U.S. citizens looking to travel to North Korea shouldn’t have the additional barrier of the 2017 ban that prevents them from traveling there. Timing is especially important for humanitarian groups and divided families. The ban will continue to delay life-saving urgent humanitarian assistance as post-pandemic humanitarian groups need to act quickly to provide relief. Time is running out for aging Korean Americans hoping to see loved ones.
In addition to providing life-saving humanitarian aid, which is an integral part of human rights, the United States should also work to improve relations with North Korea through human interaction between the people of North Korea and the United States. Person-to-person interaction paves the way for understanding mutual humanity and is an essential principle of peacebuilding.
As Christine Ahn, Managing Director of Women Cross DMZ, called in response to the renewal of the ban,
“One of the most unfortunate consequences of the North Korean travel ban is that civil society’s peacebuilding efforts have stalled. Had the travel ban come into effect in 2015, our historic crossing of the Demilitarized Zone and meetings with North Korean women would not have been possible. These activities are critical to breaking down barriers, building trust and promoting understanding. ”
As a new one report Outlined by Korea Peace Now, human rights and peace are closely related. Rather than pursuing the decades-old failed strategy of militaristic threats, sanctions, and an endless war, the Biden government should address the root cause of the security tensions on the Korean peninsula and a formal end to the Korean War by negotiating a peace treaty. The unsolved war has had a negative impact on human rights in all participating countries and diverted resources from human needs in favor of militarism. This peace-first approach would improve the lives of those affected and create the conditions for a more authentic commitment to human rights.
I welcome President Biden’s commitment to human rights at home and abroad, from his opinion Condemned the Supreme Court’s attack on Texas reproductive rights on his safety that human rights are at our center Foreign policy. However, we have not yet seen that human rights are central to the Biden government’s policy towards North Korea.
If President Biden really wants to put human rights first in foreign and domestic politics, he will lift the travel ban to North Korea and work for peace on the Korean peninsula.
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