What is songbun, and what did the UN find about North Korea's prison camps?

Songbun is the name for North Korea's system of social class, and the UN Commission of Inquiry said it decides much of a person's life. According to the Commission, a citizen's potential success in life and the level of services provided by the State are predetermined by a state-assigned social class, songbun. The Commission found that the class is passed down to children and grandchildren, and recorded in a registration system that the person cannot see.

According to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, there are three main classifications and about 50 sub-classifications. The Commission said discrimination applies to where people may live, their occupation, how they are punished, and their access to food, housing, health care and education. The North Korean government, on the contrary, proclaims that all citizens are equal and denies any discrimination based on family background.

The Commission of Inquiry was set up by the UN Human Rights Council on 21 March 2013. Eighty escapees, refugees and abductees testified publicly and 240 more were interviewed in confidence, so that they and their families would not face retaliation. The Commission's report, made public on 7 February 2014, concluded that the government was committing widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights amounting to crimes against humanity.

On prison camps, the Commission said people accused of major political crimes are held without trial in political prison camps, called kwanliso, held incommunicado. It estimated that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners perished there over five decades, and that between 80,000 and 120,000 people were believed to remain. North Korean officials stated there were no prison camps, only detention centres where people are improved through their mentality.