U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Julie Turner will travel to South Korea next month to visit a site where five South Korean teens were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s. 

South Korea’s ambassador for North Korean human rights issues, Lee Shin-hwa, announced the planned visit on Friday during a forum in Seoul on a follow-up report of the UN Commission of Inquiry(COI) on the North’s human rights conditions and the commission’s challenges. 

Turner is set to visit Seonyu Island in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province and Hong Island in Sinan County, South Jeolla Province where five South Korean high school students were abducted by North Korean spies in 1977 and 1978. 

She is set to make the visit at the request of the abductees’ families. She will be joined by unification minister Kim Yung-ho. 

When visiting Japan earlier in February, Turner visited the site in Niigata Prefecture where Megumi Yokota was abducted by the North in 1977 at the age of 13.  

The forum’s participants stressed the need for the COI follow-up report to fully reflect the issues of South Korean abductees, detainees and prisoners of war in the North while also including any changes that were detected in the North’s human rights conditions during Kim Jong-un’s rule.