South Korean lawyers representing the North Korean families of 12 defectors the DPRK claims are “abductees” will again request access to the women, the representative of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyun) group said on Tuesday.

The Park Geun-hye administration last year insisted that all 12 defectors had chosen to come to South Korea of their own free will, a claim that Minbyun said it will seek to verify.

“If the 12 workers chose to enter the South with their free will, then that would be it,” Jang Kyung-wook, the head lawyer in the case, told NK