SHITHOLE COUNTRY: As Trump Plans North Korea Summit, Defectors Tell Harrowing Stories. “Torture and starvation in political prison camps, public executions and forced abortions persist.”

Kim Jong Un, the nation’s third-generation dictator, has tightened border controls to prevent escapes since taking power at the end of 2011. Those caught risk prolonged imprisonment. North Korean women sent back from China have been forced to have abortions if the fathers were Chinese, defectors say.

Torture and starvation are routine in a vast network of North Korean prison camps operated since the 1950s with a total land area about 20 times the size of Manhattan. Around 100,000 people are held in five camps, according to the United Nations. Camps in central areas have added new facilities to house more prisoners, satellite images show.

The repression has been largely ignored as Mr. Kim seeks to rehabilitate his international image with a swing to diplomacy. As President Donald Trump prepares for a planned summit meeting with Mr. Kim on June 12—the first between a U.S. and North Korean leader—it isn’t clear whether he will raise the issue of Pyongyang’s human-rights violations, or if doing so would lead to any improvement.

Mr. Trump has indicated that he sees human rights as a major concern, including in a speech to the South Korean legislature in November in which he described prisoners as “enduring torture, starvation, rape and murder on a constant basis.” But at a meeting on Friday with one of Mr. Kim’s top lieutenants, the president said they didn’t discuss human rights.

Unfortunately, three Administrations worth of neglect allowed Pyongyang to develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems dangerous enough to buy themselves a seat at the negotiating table.