North Korean concentration camp escapee Shin Dong-hyuk has won an international human rights award.

The Geneva-based non-governmental agency UN Watch says it bestowed the 2013 Moral Courage Award on Shin Dong-hyuk. It also gave the Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award to Garry Kasparov, a former Russian chess grandmaster who became a political activist.

UN Watch says the North Korean escapee deserves the recognition because he's a witness to the human rights abuses taking place in the North and has helped stir the conscience of all mankind to protect the fundamental human rights of the voiceless victims in the isolationist country.

Shin is the only known person to have been born in and escaped from North Korea's infamous political camps. He made his escape in 2005 when he was 24.