The U.N. office on North Korea's human rights in Seoul plans to unveil a report on the issue of Pyongyang's pretrial detention this year to highlight the reclusive country's serious rights violations, its head said Friday.

Signe Poulsen, a representative of the office, told a forum that the U.N. will "highlight important shortcomings in the legal and institutional infrastructure that governs pretrial detention and make recommendations for concrete changes to protect the rights of detainees." The state-run National Unification Advisory Council held the forum to mark the first anniversary of the establishment of the U.N. office.

The U.N. opened its field office on June 23 last year in the South Korean capital in a bid to better monitor North Korea's human rights violations, as recommended by a landmark report by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the North's dismal human rights record.

She also said that the office will shortly publish a report on families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War to discuss the issue from the perspective of human rights. "We hope that the report will contribute to the adoption of a new approach for the resolution of this issue that is focused on the rights of all victims concerned and members of their families," she said.

North Korea has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Pyongyang has bristled at such criticism, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

The communist regime does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps and keeps tight control over outside information. "We are only at the beginning of a long-term process," Poulsen said, adding that there will be many chances to engage with U.N. protection mechanisms to monitor the North's dire human rights situation down the road. (Yonhap)