Anchor: A United Nations committee approved on Monday a resolution denouncing the grave human rights situations in North Korea. Although the resolution is not legally binding, it's politically significant in that it's the collective opinion of the 193 U.N. members on North Korean human rights. KBS World Radio's Kim Soyon has more.

Report: The United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee has approved a resolution that would have the U.N. address the human rights situations in North Korea. The committee adopted the resolution on Monday local time by a vote of 112-to-16 with 55 abstentions. Compared to last year, nine more countries have voted for the resolution and the number of countries voting against has decreased.

The resolution urges the North Korean government to immediately end all violations of human rights. It also addresses the persistence of continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the communist state.

The resolution denounces alleged torture, inhumane treatments and executions taking place in North Korea as well as the regime’s absence of proper procedures and rule of law. It also urges stern punishment of sex crimes against women, including prostitution and trafficking. It calls on the North to stop the forced repatriation of North Korean escapees and to swiftly resolve the issue of foreign abductees in the country.

The resolution expresses the U.N.’s concern on the suspension of inter-Korean family reunions and its hope for the resumption of inter-Korean talks soon so that the reunions can expand in scale and become a regular event.

Before the vote, North Korea said that it sternly rejected the discussion of a human rights resolution on an individual country at the U.N. General Assembly. The U.N. has currently adopted rights resolutions on three countries: North Korea, Myanmar and Iran.

The draft resolution was jointly submitted by 52 nations, including South Korea, European Union members and Japan. It will be referred to the 66th General Assembly plenary session in mid-December for a vote. The vote in the plenary session is considered to be a formality and no bill approved by the Third Committee has ever been overturned in the plenary.

The U.N. has adopted the North Korea resolution every year since 2005.

Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.