By Barbara Plett
BBC News, New York
**A UN rights expert says the food situation in North Korea is desperate, with aid from the World Food Programme reaching only one-third of the hungry.**A drop in international aid means that only 2m people are being helped.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur for North Korea was giving his annual report to a meeting of the 192 member states.
He also said women in particular were suffering from restrictions on their right to work, and described prison conditions as akin to purgatory.
Mr Muntarbhorn told the UN that conditions had been improving until the middle of the year; the World Food Programme had access to more of the country than before, and was reaching about six million needy people.
But in mid-2009 there was a shortage of international aid, influenced by the reaction to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.
So WFP could help only some 2 million people.
Now the authorities are also planning to increase restrictions on the aid organisation.
Mr Muntarbhorn’s report said the situation has been made more desperate with efforts to extend state control by curtailing economic activity.
Women under the age of 49 are not allowed to trade, he said, and some general markets have been closed: this has led to several clashes between female traders and the authorities.
Women have also been forbidden to ride bicycles, a key vehicle for getting to work, and forced to wear skirts rather than trousers.
But Mr Muntarbhorn also described an atmosphere of fear and repression, dreadful prison conditions, and said people were sent to labour camps for things like failing to turn up to work or watching films from South Korea.
North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador Pak Tok-hun rejected the report and said the country was being singled out for sinister political purposes.