The North Korean government’s mistreatment of its own citizens may amount to crimes against humanity, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Tuesday.

In a statement delivered to the UN’s Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet, the top rights official at the United Nations, condemned the DPRK’s persistent human rights abuses against its political prison population, and said that the authorities in Pyongyang should be held accountable for what they have done.

“Our monitoring indicates apparently systematic human rights violations in detention centres in the DPRK, including sexual violence against women and girls,” said Bachelet, the former President