WASHINGTON (Yonhap) ― Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean defector born in a prison camp, has been selected as a winner of the Human Rights Watch’s annual award for his efforts to promote awareness of the North’s horrific human rights situation, the group said Tuesday.

Shin was named one of four recipients of the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism, along with Father Bernard Kinvi from the Central African Republic, Arwa Othman from Yemen, and Dr. M.R. Rajagopal from India, the group said in a release.

Shin “experienced brutality and starvation growing up in one of North Korea’s forced labor camps and has worked tirelessly to alert the world to these horrors since his escape in 2005,” it said.

“Human Rights Watch honors Shin Dong-hyuk for his efforts to expose and end atrocities in North Korea.”

The 31-year-old is the only known escapee of Camp 14, one of North Korea’s camps for political prisoners, and he witnessed numerous executions, including those of his mother and brother, and was beaten, tortured and routinely starved.

North Korea has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world. The communist regime does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps across the nation and keeps tight control over outside information.

The issue has drawn greater international attention after the U.N. Commission of Inquiry issued a report in February after a year-long probe, saying that North Korean leaders are responsible for “widespread, systematic and gross” violations of human rights.

The report also said the International Criminal Court should handle North Korea’s “crimes against humanity.”

But Pyongyang has bristled at any talk of its human rights conditions, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime. On Saturday, the North released its own human rights report, claiming the country has the world’s most advantageous human rights system and policies.