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North Korean defectors

People defect from North Korea for political, material, and personal reasons. Defectors flee to various countries, mainly South Korea. In South Korea, they are referred to by several terms, including "northern refugees" and "new settlers".

Not to be confused with South Koreans defecting to North Korea.

Hangul

탈북자, 탈북민
脫北者, 脫北民

talbukja, talbungmin

t'albukcha, t'albungmin

Towards the end of the North Korean famine of the 1990s, there was a steep increase in defections, reaching a peak in 1998 and 1999. Since then, some of the main reasons for the falling number of defectors have been strict border patrols and inspections, forced deportations, the costs of defection, and the end of the mass famine that swept the country when Soviet aid ceased with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The most common strategy for defectors is to cross the China–North Korea border into the Chinese provinces of Jilin or Liaoning. About 76% to 84% of defectors interviewed in China or South Korea came from the North Korean provinces bordering China.


From China, defectors usually flee to a third country, due to China being a relatively close ally of North Korea. China is the most influential of North Korea's few economic partners, with the latter's situation as the target of decades of UN sanctions. China is also a continuous source of aid to North Korea. To avoid worsening the already tense relations with the Korean Peninsula, China refuses to grant North Korean defectors refugee status and considers them illegal economic migrants. Defectors caught in China are repatriated back to North Korea, where human rights groups say they often face years of punishment and harsh interrogation, or even death.


The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 determined that all North Korean defectors earning income in a member state must be sent back to North Korea. Exceptions can be made in cases where humanitarian law or refugee status apply, and all member states need to elaborate reports on these deportations, "including an explanation of why less than half of such DPRK nationals were repatriated ... if applicable". This resolution was adopted in December 2017, and the deadline for repatriating defectors was December 2019.[1]

Demographics[edit]

According to Courtland Robinson, assistant professor at the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, around 10,000 North Korean defectors are staying in China.[6] 1,418 were registered as arriving in South Korea in 2016.[7] In 2017, there were 31,093 defectors registered with the Unification Ministry in South Korea, 71% of whom were women.[8] In 2018, the numbers had been dramatically dropping since Kim Jong-Un took power in 2011, trending towards less than a thousand per year, down from the peak of 2,914 in 2009.[9]


Professor Courtland Robinson of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University estimated that in the past the total number of 6,824 and 7,829 children were born to North Korean women in the three Northeastern Provinces of China.[10] Recently, survey results conducted in 2013 by Johns Hopkins and the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) showed that there were about 8,708 North Korean defectors and 15,675 North Korean children in China's same three Northeastern Provinces which are Jilin, Liaoning and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.


Most North Korean refugees reportedly leave the country due to economic reasons.[11][12] Based on a study of North Korean defectors, women make up the majority of defections. In 2002, they comprised 56% of defections to South Korea (1,138 people), and by 2011, the number had grown to 71% (2,706 people). More women leave the North because they are more likely to suffer financial hardships.[13] This is due to the prevalence of women in service sector jobs whereas men are employed in the military. According to South Korean government data, 45% of defectors cited economic reasons for defecting. According to NK News, men had a higher tendency to leave the country due to political, ideological or surveillance pressure.[14] During the first half of 2018, 88% of defectors to the South were women.[9]

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Terms[edit]

Different terms, official and unofficial, refer to North Korean refugees. One such term in South Korea is "northern refugees" (탈북자; talbukja; t'albukcha or 탈북민; talbungmin; t'albungmin).


On 9 January 2005, the South Korean Ministry of Unification announced the use of saeteomin (새터민, "people of new land") instead of talbukja (탈북자, 'people who fled the North'), a term about which North Korean officials expressed displeasure.[2] A newer term is bukhanitaljumin (북한 이탈 주민; 北韓離脫住民), which has the more forceful meaning of 'residents who renounced North Korea'.[3]


North Korean expert Andrei Lankov has criticized the term "defectors", as most who flee North Korea are not political dissents seeking asylum, but are instead primarily motivated by poverty.[4]

Settlement process[edit]

South Korea


North Korean defectors must first enter the North Korean Refugee Protection Center, or Hanawon, run by the National Intelligence Service for investigation when they leave North Korea and enter the Republic of Korea. The interrogation process is conducted in conjunction with the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Unification, the National Police Agency, and the North Korean Five Star Committee. It is also necessary to check during the interrogation whether they are spies sent by the North Korean regime or ethnic Koreans disguised as North Korean defectors. In addition, if North Korean defectors pass the interrogation safely, they will be admitted to Hanawon and trained to adapt to South Korean society. Most spies disguised as North Korean defectors or North Korean defectors are caught during the process because of their excellent interrogation ability and experience by the National Intelligence Service and related organizations.[5]

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12 weeks of adaptation training

$6,000 to $32,400 of settlement benefits, depending on size of household

$13,300 to $19,100 housing subsidy

Free education in public schools and universities

Psychological and cultural adjustment[edit]

North Korean defectors experience serious difficulties connected to psychological and cultural adjustment once they have been resettled. This occurs mainly because of the conditions and environment that North Koreans lived in while in their own country, as well as inability to fully comprehend new culture, rules, and ways of living in South Korea.[133]


Difficulties in adjustment often come in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder.


In the case of North Koreans, such traumatic events and experiences include brutality from the regime, starvation, and propaganda.[134]


Some studies have found the direct connection between physical illness and PTSD. PTSD serves as an explanation of the link between the exposure to trauma and physical health: exposure to trauma leads to worsening of the physical health condition.[135] Related symptoms include disturbing memories or dreams relate to the traumatic events, anxiety, mental or physical distress, alterations in the ways of thinking.[136] Depression and somatization are two of the conventional forms of PTSD, both of which are diagnosed among North Korean defectors with females having larger statistic numbers of the disorder diagnoses.[137]


According to a recent survey, about 56% of the North Korean defectors are influenced by one or more types of psychological disorders.[138] 93% of surveyed North Korean defectors identify food and water shortages and no access to medical care and, thus, constant illness as the most common types of their traumatic experiences preceding PTSD.[138] Such traumatic experiences greatly influence the ways North Korean defectors adjust in new places. PTSD often prevents defectors from adequately assimilating into a new culture as well as from being able to hold jobs and accumulate material resources.[139]


Traumatic events are not the only reason why North Koreans experience difficulty adjusting to the new way of living. Woo Teak-jeon conducted interviews with 32 North Korean defectors living in South Korea and found that other adjustment difficulties that are not related to PTSD occur due to such factors as the defector's suspiciousness, their way of thinking, prejudice of the new society, and unfamiliar sets of values.[133] In many instances, North Korean defectors seem to be unable to easily adjust to the new way of living even when it comes to nutrition. According to research conducted by The Korean Nutrition Society, North Koreans used to consuming only small portions of food in North Korea daily, continue to exercise the same type of habits even when given an abundance of food and provision.[140]


Psychological and cultural adjustment of North Koreans to the new norms and rules is a sensitive issue, but it has some ways of resolution. According to Yoon, collective effort of the defectors themselves, the government, NGOs, and humanitarian and religious organizations can help make the adjustment process smoother and less painful.[141]


The non-profit NGO Freedom Speakers International (FSI), formerly known as Teach North Korean Refugee(TNKR) has received positive recognition for aiding refugees' adjustment to life outside of North Korea.[142][143] According to their website, FSI's mission is to empower North Korean refugees to find their own voice and path through education, advocacy, and support.[144] Their primary focus is to assist North Korean refugees in preparing for their future and transitioning to life outside of North Korea by providing free English learning opportunities. FSI also hosts bi-annual English public speaking contests for North Korean refugees[145] and holds public forums that offer first-hand accounts of life in, escape from, and adjustment outside of North Korea.[146] FSI was founded in 2013 by Casey Lartigue Jr. and Eunkoo Lee, who currently co-direct the organization. Lartigue Jr. and Lee gave a joint TEDx Talk in 2017 that tells the history of FSI and offers practical lessons for making the world a better place.[147]

Return to North Korea[edit]

In some cases, defectors voluntarily return to North Korea. Double defectors either take a route through third countries such as China, or may defect directly from South Korea.[148] From 2012 to 2021 the Unification Ministry had recorded 30 defector returns, but there were likely more unrecorded returns.[28] A former South Korean MP estimated that in 2012 about 100 defectors returned to North Korea via China.[149] In 2015, it was reported that about 700[150] defectors living in South Korea are unaccounted for and have possibly fled to China or Southeast Asia in hopes of returning to North Korea.[148] In one case, a double defector re-entered North Korea four times.[151]


Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has allegedly started a campaign to attract defectors to return with promises of money, housing, employment, and no punishments.[152][153] A foreign diplomat in Pyongyang said in 2013 that not all returning defectors are trucked to prison; they can instead be put on TV for propaganda purposes.[153] According to unconfirmed reports, government operatives have contacted defectors living in South Korea and offered them guarantees that their families are safe, 50 million South Korean Won ($44,000),[151] and a public appearance on TV.[149] It was reported in 2013 that North Korea had aired at least 13 such appearances on TV where returning defectors complain about poor living conditions in the South and pledge allegiance to Kim Jong Un.[149][154] In November 2016, North Korean website Uriminzokkiri aired an interview with three double defectors who complained that they had been treated as second-class citizens.[32] ABC News reported in 2017 that 25% of all defectors in South Korea have seriously considered returning home.[155]


In 2013, a re-defector was charged by South Korea upon return.[156] In 2016, defector Kim Ryon-hui's request to return to North Korea was denied by the South Korean government.[157] In June 2017, Jeon Hye-sung, a defector who had been a guest on several South Korean TV shows using the name Lim Ji-hyun, returned to the North. On North Korean TV, she said that she had been ill-treated and pressured into fabricating stories detrimental to North Korea.[32] In July 2017, a man who had defected to the South and then returned to the North was arrested under the National Security Act when he entered the South again.[158]


In 2019, South Korea deported two North Korean fishermen who tried to defect, saying that an investigation had found the men had killed 16 of their crewmates.[159] In July 2020, North Korea reported a suspected case of COVID-19 in a man who had defected to the South and then swam to the North from Ganghwa Island.[160]


On 2 January 2022, a defector returned to North Korea by crossing the DMZ. The man had been in South Korea for about a year, and had been working as a cleaner "barely scraping a living" according to a South Korean official. South Korea launched an inquiry into why, despite surveillance cameras showing his exit, troops did not stop him.[28][161]


In 2021, a survey by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and NK Social Research found that 18% of 407 defectors polled were willing to return to North Korea.[28]

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No Space for Love: A North Korean Defector Story of Love and Survival by Ellen Mason

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea, by , a memoir of escape to China

Masaji Ishikawa

Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea, a 2014 memoir by .

Jang Jin-sung

, by Blaine Harden, a 2012 biography of Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean defector who was born and raised in Kaechon internment camp.

Escape from Camp 14

Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea, a 2016 book telling the story of Sungju Lee, a defector who grew up as an orphan in North Korea.

, a book of short stories by Adam Johnson whose title story features two defectors adjusting to life in Seoul.[16][53][54][60][162]

Fortune Smiles

Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter's Search for Her Mother and Herself, a memoir by North Korean defector Songmi Han and Casey Lartigue Jr.

I Escaped North Korea! – by Ellie Crowe and Scott Peters – 2019 of a North Korean orphan fleeing through China;

middle-grade story

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by talks about her escape from North Korea into China and finally South Korea.[163]

Yeonmi Park

Le Défecteur de Pyongyang, by , a two volume graphic novel from the SAS series.

Gérard de Villiers

, by Barbara Demick, focuses on the pre-and-post defection lives of several individuals from Chongjin.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

The Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea, a 2015 autobiography of , a woman who escaped from North Korea by crossing the Yalu River in 1997.

Hyeonseo Lee

, a 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Adam Johnson.

The Orphan Master's Son

Deportation of North Koreans by the South Korean Government

South Korean defectors

Unconverted long-term prisoners

Free North Korea Radio

Liberty in North Korea

HanVoice

Americans in North Korea

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Similar migrants fleeing to Free World:

Greitens, Sheena Chestnut. 2024. . Cambridge University Press.

Politics of the North Korean Diaspora

PBS documentary follows North Korean defectors on a harrowing journey to freedom

Crossing Heaven's Border

by Jim Butterworth, Lisa Sleeth and Aaron Lubarsky, 2004 PBS documentary, at Independent Lens PBS website. ("Seoul Train" at Global Voices PBS website)

"Seoul Train"