The United Nations human rights chief has demanded an international investigation into North Korea's human rights record.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay issued a statement Monday calling the human rights situation in North Korea “deplorable,” and saying that a year after Kim Jong Un became the country's new supreme leader, there is almost no sign of improvement.

Pillay said that the world's focus on North Korea's nuclear program and rocket launches should not be allowed to overshadow the country's human rights situation, which in one way or another affects almost the entire population of the reclusive state and has “no parallel anywhere else in the world.”

North Korea maintains a network of political prison camps, believed contain more than 200,000 people. Defectors say the camps are marked by rampant violations, including rapes, torture, executions and slave labor.