North Korean authorities sentenced an entire family, including a two-year-old child, to life in prison after one of the family members was found to be in possession of a Bible.

The incident, which occurred in 2009 but surfaced in a recent report on worldwide religious freedom from the State Department, is one of several harrowing punitive measures levied against Christians and other minority groups in North Korea. The communist hereditary dictatorship sent the two-year-old child and the rest of the family to political prison camps, where inmates routinely experience harsh physical mistreatment and dire conditions.

There are estimated to be between 50,000 and 70,000 citizens in prison camps for their Christian faith, according to a report from nonprofit ministry Open Doors referenced by the State Department. North Korean officials prompt all citizens to “report anyone engaged in unauthorized religious activity or in possession of religious material,” while those deemed to be guilty of maintaining Christian beliefs undergo secret prosecutions and can face life sentences “imposed on up to three generations of the immediate family of the person found guilty.”