12 North Korean restaurant workers reported to have defected in 2016 were brought to South Korea against their will, a non-governmental joint fact-finding committee has concluded, in a report which calls on Seoul to allow the women to return to their families in the DPRK.

The English-language report — prepared by a committee composed of lawyers from the left-wing International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and the Confederation of Lawyers for Asia and the Pacific (COLAP) — was released in its final form on Monday.

“The Joint Fact Finding Committee condemns the act of the collective kidnapping of the 12 young women