It looks like this defector couple may have repatriated themselves back to North Korea:
This image captured from footage by North Korea’s propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri on Aug. 28, 2017, shows Lim Ji-hyun, a North Korea woman who defected to South Korea in 2014 and returned home in June. In a video, she condemned South Korean TV programs featuring North Korean refugees. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
South Korea is looking into the whereabouts of a North Korean defector couple amid speculation that they may have voluntarily returned to North Korea via China, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.
A local cable TV channel reported Sunday that the 30-something defector couple could not be reached after they left for China in mid-October.
“As they fell out of touch after leaving for China, authorities are investigating the case,” Baik Tae-hyun, ministry spokesman, told a regular press briefing.
It cannot not be confirmed if they voluntarily re-entered North Korea unless they appear on the North’s propaganda outlets to say so.
The ministry said that 26 North Korean defectors have gone back to the North so far. The number of North Koreans coming to South Korea stood at 31,093 as of end-September.
In mid-July, a North Korean female defector appeared in a propaganda video, saying she returned to North Korea in June after suffering “physically and mentally” in the capitalist South. [Yonhap]
It cannot not be confirmed if they voluntarily re-entered North Korea unless they appear on the North’s propaganda outlets to say so.
Appearing on North Korean tv and saying they voluntarily returned to the North from China doesn’t mean that’s what happened. They very well could have been approached by North Korean operatives in China and told their families in North Korea would be executed if they didn’t return immediately.
Flyingsword
7 years ago
Why if you made it out of a communist country would you go back to another communist country?
ChickenHead
7 years ago
“Why if you made it out of a communist country would you go back to another communist country?”
Why do many immigrants come to America, bring their dysfunctional culture and habits with them, and then make demands for America to accommodate their dysfunction?
Short answer: People are resistant to change and prefer microadaptation to habitual misery over the difficulty and unsurity of major paradigm shifts.
This is seen in every aspect of life… from people who stay in toxic relationships to continuing hated jobs to habitual financial mismanagement to self destructive behaviors such as drug use.
guitard
7 years ago
Why if you made it out of a communist country would you go back to another communist country?
The vast majority of defectors these days (since 2002 actually) are women. Typically, they spend years in China before making it to a country (usually Thailand) that will allow them onward passage to South Korea. Life for a female defector from North Korea when she crosses the river into China is kind of like the life of a naive teenage girl runaway who just got off the bus at Times Square in NYC. There are lots and lots of evil scumbags just waiting to pounce on her.
Most of the North Korean women in China end up getting prostituted and or sold to a lonely Chinese guy to be his wife. Many of those relationships produce kids. The South Korean government does not recognize the kids as North Korean defectors and does not allow the mothers who escape to Thailand to bring them with them to South Korea. Consequently, there are thousands of kids left behind in China. The second a defector arrives in South Korea, they become South Korean citizens (actually, South Korea considers all Koreans in North Korea to be South Korean citizens). They get a South Korean passport and that allows them to easily travel to China. Many of these women feel the pull of motherhood and travel back to China to see their kids. Some get lucky and get to bring them to South Korea.
This is a very dark and painful part of many female defectors’ lives. On top of all of the other problems they have trying to acclimate to life in South Korea, they carry around this emotional baggage of having left their kids in China.
That’s why a lot of these women go back to China. Why or how this woman ended up back in North Korea is anyone’s guess.
Appearing on North Korean tv and saying they voluntarily returned to the North from China doesn’t mean that’s what happened. They very well could have been approached by North Korean operatives in China and told their families in North Korea would be executed if they didn’t return immediately.
Why if you made it out of a communist country would you go back to another communist country?
“Why if you made it out of a communist country would you go back to another communist country?”
Why do many immigrants come to America, bring their dysfunctional culture and habits with them, and then make demands for America to accommodate their dysfunction?
Short answer: People are resistant to change and prefer microadaptation to habitual misery over the difficulty and unsurity of major paradigm shifts.
This is seen in every aspect of life… from people who stay in toxic relationships to continuing hated jobs to habitual financial mismanagement to self destructive behaviors such as drug use.
The vast majority of defectors these days (since 2002 actually) are women. Typically, they spend years in China before making it to a country (usually Thailand) that will allow them onward passage to South Korea. Life for a female defector from North Korea when she crosses the river into China is kind of like the life of a naive teenage girl runaway who just got off the bus at Times Square in NYC. There are lots and lots of evil scumbags just waiting to pounce on her.
Most of the North Korean women in China end up getting prostituted and or sold to a lonely Chinese guy to be his wife. Many of those relationships produce kids. The South Korean government does not recognize the kids as North Korean defectors and does not allow the mothers who escape to Thailand to bring them with them to South Korea. Consequently, there are thousands of kids left behind in China. The second a defector arrives in South Korea, they become South Korean citizens (actually, South Korea considers all Koreans in North Korea to be South Korean citizens). They get a South Korean passport and that allows them to easily travel to China. Many of these women feel the pull of motherhood and travel back to China to see their kids. Some get lucky and get to bring them to South Korea.
This is a very dark and painful part of many female defectors’ lives. On top of all of the other problems they have trying to acclimate to life in South Korea, they carry around this emotional baggage of having left their kids in China.
That’s why a lot of these women go back to China. Why or how this woman ended up back in North Korea is anyone’s guess.