There are numerous reasons why women refugees from North Korea have begun to outnumber men including their ability to fulfill smuggling payments and they are less likely to be punished if caught.

"It seems smugglers are targeting women directly," said Vitit Muntarbhorn, Friday, presenting his report at U.N. World Headquarters in New York. Women are more honest in fulfilling pledges of payment to smugglers than men and so are considered a better risk, he said.

The BBC said about 100,000 people from the DPRK have escaped to China. Estimates by policy think tanks puts the number at 200,000 or more. Whatever the actual numbers, according to the United Nations, more and more women have started joining the ranks of these refugees.

Recent surveys by Refugees International, a non-profit organization, reveal that in the last couple of years, Chinese crackdowns have become more frequent.

"Most of the people interviewed said they either knew or knew of North Koreans who had been deported in recent weeks," said Refugees International.

In fact, once women refugees have safely arrived in another country, their sex makes them more vulnerable to exploitation. "As many arrive hungry and desperate, they become easy targets for traffickers," said the International Labor Organization 2005 report.

North Korean women are frequently sold into forced marriages or prostitution, according to the ILO. The biggest demand for women from the DPRK is in China, where the one-child policy has resulted in a deficit of women because of selective abortions, infanticide, and the selling off of girl babies.

In September, this year, North Korea formally told the United Nations it no longer needs food aid. Pyongyang cited a good harvest and a need to shift from dependence to development as his reasons.

Gerald Bourke, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said despite assertions of a better harvest in North Korea this year - and a pledge the government was "prepared to provide food to all our people" - there was still a considerable need for food aid.

Women have suffered the most from food shortages in North Korea. In 2004, a U.N. survey revealed that international aid had failed to improve the nutritional situation of women in the DPRK. "One-third of mothers are malnourished," Muntarbhorn said.

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