He said:

The women, who are a half of the global population, assume a great role in promoting well-being and development of families and society and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

The DPRK government has continued to take legal and practical measures for women to enjoy gender equality and fully exercise their rights in all sectors of state and social life.

The DPRK attaches importance to the dialogue and cooperation for protecting and promoting the human rights, the rights of women in particular, and does its best for their realization.

The DPRK government will as ever strive for realization of gender equality, advocacy of women's rights, advancement and well-being of women and further strengthen the international cooperation and exchange in this area.

On the crimes committed by Japan and the south Korean regime against women, the representative said:

As well known to the world, the sexual slavery is a brutal crime against humanity and flagrant violation of human rights committed by Japan during World War II. Japan forced 200 000 Korean women and girls and many other women from Asian and other countries into sexual slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army.

72 years elapsed since its defeat in World War II, but Japan has denied its crime to date, let alone make an apology, and busied itself covering up the crime.

Japan must admit, as requested by the international community, its state and legal responsibility for the past crimes against humanity and make an official and sincere apology and compensation.

The United Nations should never tolerate the criminal acts of Japan which insults the sexual slavery victims by terming them as "prostitutes" although it had committed the hideous crime against hundreds of thousands of women and should put pressure on Japan until it makes an official apology and compensation.

The south Korean regime did a group abduction of 12 DPRK women citizens abroad in daylight early April 2016 by gangsters of its intelligence service.

But, the south Korean authorities have not yet inform the international community and victims' parents of their fate.

I want to remind you that the DPRK government and victims' parents have already requested the secretary-general of the UN, the UN high commissioner for Human Rights and UN Human Rights Council several times to set the crime as an official agenda of the UN and hold the criminals accountable in the international court. But regrettably, there has been no positive answer from them.

Recently the DPRK government made an official proposal to the UN high commissioner for Human Rights to visit the north and the south of Korea respectively to solve the abduction issue and to take relevant measures for reunion of the victims with their families at the earliest date by meeting the victims and their families in person.

If the south Korean authorities truly wish the national reconciliation, unity and reunification, they have to apologize immediately and return the abducted DPRK women citizens to the embrace of their parents without delay.