12/16/2003

North Korean refugees who overcome immense obstacles to reach South Korea enter a world of wealth and modernity virtually unimaginable to their compatriots who remain trapped in the retrograde totalitarian state that they left behind. They receive generous financial support from the South Korean government, but many remain on the fringes of South Korean society. They worry about their families back home and about the vulnerability of refugees who remain in China, subject to arbitrary arrest and deportation. As generous and welcoming as the South Korean government is to North Korean refugees, it could do more to support their true integration into the 21st century world of the South.

The official policy of the South Korean government, “[b]ased on brotherly love toward fellow Koreans and universal humanitarianism,” is to “accommodate all those North Korean refugees who wish to come to the South.” According to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, 3,944 North Korean refugees presently reside in the country. Annual arrivals have increased from the single digits in the early 1990s to 583 in 2001, 1,140 in 2002, and 1,065 through November 13, 2003. While the increase is significant, the numbers are still small compared to the numbers of North Korean refugees presently residing illegally in China (estimated between 60-100,000) and the potential number of migrants who would seek freedom and economic opportunity in the South if the border between the two countries were open.

Ministry of Unification officials clearly stated to Refugees International that they are not interested in providing impetus or encouragement for more North Koreans to leave their country. The South Korean government is not sympathetic to any strategy that would involve stimulating a large-scale refugee exodus to help destabilize the North Korean regime. In the words of a senior Ministry of Unification official to RI, their job is “to manage Korean affairs in a stable manner.” In this context, the government provides support to all North Koreans who can make it to the South. If the numbers are low, so be it.

Absent any proactive measures, therefore, the low annual arrivals reflect the sheer difficulty of reaching the South. The easiest route out of North Korea is across the Tumen River into China, but as RI and others have documented, Chinese policy is to arrest and deport North Korean asylum seekers and block their access to the South Korean and other consulates on their territory. Thus, North Koreans must brave incredible dangers to reach the South, traveling across China from the border region to Beijing with the goal of reaching an embassy or, assisted by a courageous network of refugee activists operating illegally on Chinese soil, heading south to neighboring countries, such as Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and Thailand, where they purchase illegal travel documents or present themselves at South Korean consulates. Along every step of these journeys of several thousand miles, they risk arrest and possible deportation to North Korea, where they are placed in labor camps as punishment for leaving.

Officials from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told RI that the government has entered into discussions with China about their treatment of North Korean refugees. They have urged the Chinese to stop arresting and deporting law-abiding refugees and to allow those who wish to seek asylum in South Korea to do so. China has cooperated on individual cases, allowing, for example, 50 North Koreans (out of a total of 120 occupying the South Korean consulate in Beijing) to enter South Korea. But the basic Chinese policy of treating North Koreans as illegal economic migrants remains in place. Refugee activists with South Korean NGOs questioned South Korea’s ability to influence China on this issue, considering South Korea’s dependence on cordial relations with China to maintain its economic growth and to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula.

Those refugees lucky and brave enough to reach the South are first subjected to interrogation to weed out any spies or security risks. They then spend eight weeks at Hanawon, a special processing facility where they receive training that addresses the psychological stress of the journey, the adaptation to a new country, and how to overcome cultural differences. Basic vocational and life skills training are also provided. While the early refugee populations consisted largely of single men, recent arrivals include more families and unaccompanied women and children.

The refugees receive a generous financial package that dates from the early days of the refugee program when individual defectors were lavished with support to make a political statement about the wealth and generosity of the South Korean government compared to the impoverished North. Each head of household receives a cash stipend of $32,000, paid in three installments. Dependents receive an additional $6,500 each. The refugees also receive subsidized housing in public rental apartments, support for education and further vocational training, and job placement. One expert, who has worked as a consultant for the Korean government on the resettlement program, estimated the total value of the resettlement support to be $70,000 per individual head of household.

Despite this generous financial support, North Koreans face tremendous challenges adapting and integrating into South Korean society. North Korean society is a cradle-to-grave welfare state, albeit at a level of absolute poverty and deprivation for all but the elite, in which the omniscient North Korean Workers Party intrudes in every aspect of its citizens’ lives. According to South Korean NGO workers with extensive experience working with North Koreans in the South, the refugees can feel totally lost and without support in the atomized modern culture of South Korea. This feeling of isolation is compounded by the fact that despite public expressions of intra-ethnic solidarity, South Koreans have little empathy for their Northern brethren, considering them unsophisticated visitors from a hostile country.

North Korean children have an especially tough time. The Southern school system is hyper-competitive and exam-oriented, and North Korean children just can’t cope. Further, South Korean children isolate and reject North Korean students, leaving the latter with little choice but to express their frustration in random acts of disobedience.

South Korean religious groups are actively involved in trying to develop alternative programs to ease the transition for North Korean refugees. RI visited the Exalting Freedom School, run by a pastor and his wife, which provides supplementary education to 45 refugees, mainly young adults trying to make their way through Korean universities. The confidence and ease of expression of the students were striking, especially compared to the fearful refugees whom RI interviewed in China in June. Good Friends, a Buddhist human rights NGO, has established a “good neighbors” program, which pairs refugees with South Korean volunteers who assist them with the basics of surviving daily life in Seoul and other Korean cities. These programs are small, however, and are meeting only a fraction of the real needs of transitional support for North Korean refugees.

The success of refugee resettlement programs in the United States has derived from local-level partnerships between government and non-governmental volunteers and professional service providers. As generous as the South Korean government is to North Korean refugees, similar partnerships would make a substantial contribution to easing the transition and integration of North Korean refugees into the South.

Refugees International, therefore, recommends that:

The Government of South Korea

• Recognize that North Korean refugees need more time to adapt to life in South Korea, and provide financial support to Korean non-governmental organizations for alternative education, vocational, and life skills programs.
• Become more proactive in protection efforts for North Korean refugees, engaging with China to allow more North Koreans to seek asylum legally and making efforts to identify and protect North Koreans in other Southeast Asian countries.
• In the context of its engagement strategy with the government of North Korea, raise the possibility of establishing an orderly process for North Koreans to emigrate to the South.
  

• Offer technical support to the Government of South Korea in the area of refugee resettlement and integration. If the offer is accepted, support technical missions of U.S. non-governmental organizations with experience resettling isolated refugee populations, such as the Hmong.