The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, said Tuesday that he met with some members of a group of North Korean restaurant workers who may have been abducted to South Korea against their will.

Speaking at a press conference in Seoul at the end of a weeklong visit, he said that the rights of the 12 women should be respected as they are "victims."

"When I say victims, I am implying that they were subject to some kind of deceit in regard to where they were going," Quintana said.

Quintana said that from his interviews he found out there were "some shortcomings" in regard to how they were brought to South Korea and assured that they have rights in regard to where they desire to reside.

The 12 women, who were waitresses at a North Korean government-run restaurant in China, arrived in South Korea along with their male manager on April 7, 2016.

North Korea has insisted that the women were abducted by Seoul's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, alleging the male manager had duped them into making the journey.

Quintana also said that North Korea should address the human rights situation in the country to bring permanent peace within the Korean Peninsula.

While welcoming the denuclearization process, he said neither the Panmunjeom Declaration that the two Koreas' leaders signed in April nor the joint statement signed by U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their summit in June "includes an explicit use of the human rights terminology."

At Tuesday's conference the U.S. rapporteur also stressed that child starvation and malnutrition in North Korea is still a serious problem given that the country's annual food production decreased more than 7 percent compared to a year ago.