Tag: defectors

As the statistics in the below article show, Kim Jong-un’s tightening of border security has worked in regards to stemming the tide of defections across the DMZ:

A total of 65 North Koreans have crossed the tightly-patrolled land and sea borders with South Korea to defect to the capitalist country since 2010 with 15 of them breaking the borders undetected, a military report showed Tuesday.

The North Korean conscript who made it to a South Korean guard post near the eastern part of the military demarcation line (MDL) in June was among those who have crossed over, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s report submitted to Rep. Shon In-choon of the ruling Saenuri Party.

The soldier was not detected until after he had crossed the heavily-fortified border, spent one night near the South Korean military outpost and turned himself in the next day.

The episode sharply stoked skepticism over the South Korean military’s border guarding after a similar case was reported in the eastern section of the border in 2012.

Fifteen of the total 65 defectors have crossed the borders without being caught by border guards before the defectors turned themselves in or civilians reported them, according to the report.

The number of defections through borders reached 10 in 2010 and increased to 39 in 2011 before sinking to 5 the next year.

The number plunged to 1 in 2013 before edging up to 6 last year, a downward trend attributable to tightened border security under North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took office in 2012.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This same freedom that allows North Korean women to more easily cross the border into China also makes them more susceptible to sex trafficking.  That is why today North Korean women in China are the modern day comfort women that few people care about:

SEOUL, July 6 (UPI) — North Korean defectors are overwhelmingly women, according to a South Korean government report released Sunday.

The preliminary data from Seoul’s Unification Ministry indicated of the 535 North Koreans who sought asylum in South Korea in 2015, 444 were women, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

Women in North Korea are not subject to the same strict surveillance in place for North Korean men, according to South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh.

The North Korean state employs men in higher numbers, and a prolonged absence from the workplace is likely to raise a red flag.

While Pyongyang maintains a system that discourages men from fleeing the country, North Korean women who are registered as “housewives” in the country are allowed more freedom.

Women participate in North Korea’s unofficial economy at higher rates and the country’s gray markets have continued to proliferate as the state looks the other way.

In the absence of scrutiny, North Korean women also cross the China-North Korea border in larger numbers — an option not available to North Korean men, according to South Korean press.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

Here is a rare method of defection from North Korea:

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea through the inter-Korean border Monday, an official from the Ministry of National Defense said.

“A North Korean man presumed to be a serviceperson defected to our side earlier this morning,” a ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

“He crossed the border in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, on foot, and expressed his will to defect,” he added, noting that he has been under investigation by relevant authorities.

Other details including the identity of the man and his motive are yet to be known.

Over the past several years, South Korea has seen a series of defection cases from the poverty-stricken communist neighbor. But it is not usual for North Korean soldiers to walk crossing the Military Demarcation Line to defect. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I hope this soldier did not have any immediate family because if he did they are likely heading to the gulag.

"Sponsors…focus more on the ‘defector’ part rather than the value of being a ‘WBA World Champion’." @NewFocusINTL http://t.co/iLG0HMbBOs

— Liberty in North Korea (@LibertyinNK) May 28, 2015

Like any of these reports from anonymous sources, treated them with a healthy dose of skepticism because who knows if they are true:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has demanded that officials “go to South Korea if they have to” to arrest those who defected on his birthday, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).

The non-profit news outlet quoted internal sources as saying Kim was furious when told that 16 North Koreans defected on February 16.

“During Kim’s birthday, the nation was under a special warning period for defecting, and when reported by his officials, Kim ordered them to send out an arrest squad to catch the ‘fleed family,'” the source was quoted as saying.

The source also said officials were threatened with punishment if they failed to bring back the defectors from North Hamgyong Province.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Considering that North Koreans officials are reportedly being executed for not listening to the regime; I would have to believe that the scene these diplomats made was ordered by the regime leadership:

A U.S.-organized event on North Korea’s human rights briefly turned into chaos at the U.N. on Thursday as North Korean diplomats insisted on reading a statement of protest, amid shouts from defectors, and then stormed out.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, tried to quiet the diplomats at the event that featured more than 20 defectors. She called North Korea’s statements “totally self-discrediting.”

The North Korean diplomats did not comment as they left the chamber after diplomat Ri Song Chol read out a statement in protest of the event, even as North Korean defectors stood and shouted in their faces.

Nuclear-armed North Korea has been on the defensive ever since a groundbreaking U.N. commission of inquiry detailed vast rights abuses there. North Korea has repeatedly referred to defectors who cooperated in the inquiry “human scum.”

Defectors stood up and shouted in Korean as Power and others called for calm and a U.N. security team assembled. An observer who speaks Korean said the shouts included “Shut up!” ”Free North Korea!” ”Down with Kim Jong Un!” and “Even animals know to wait their turn.”  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

Resettlement Program for Defectors Needs Total Overhaul – Editorial http://t.co/CiBZuoLiVS via @EnglishChosun

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 26, 2015

It seems that North Korea is very serious about stopping the Fighters for A Free North Korea from releasing balloons with copies of “The Interview” on it:

North Korea on Sunday renewed its threats against a South Korean civic group’s plan to send anti-Pyongyang fliers across the border via balloon, warning it will use “all the firepower strike means” to destroy them.

The message, posted as an open notice by the frontline units of the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA), came about a week after a leading activist in Seoul reaffirmed his intent to scatter materials criticizing the communist regime across the border around March 26.

The date marks the 5th anniversary of Pyongyang’s torpedoing of the South Korean corvette Cheonan.

Park Sang-hak, head of the activist group, said earlier this month he and other North Korean defectors would release balloons holding 500,000 leaflets, as well as DVDs of the U.S. film “The Interview,” a comedy depicting a fictitious assassination of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un.

According to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the KPA’s open notice said the campaign “deliberately (escalates) tension on the Korean peninsula where the situation has reached the brink of war” on top of the annual Seoul-Washington military drills that kicked off March 2.

Should the campaign be carried out, the North’s frontline army will “blow up” the balloons with “all the firepower strike means,” it said, adding that any countermeasures will “entail double and treble merciless retaliatory strikes.”

In October the two Koreas exchanged gunfire after the North attempted to shoot down balloons carrying similar leaflets. South Korea suffered no casualties or property damage.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the group should just secretly fly the balloons across the border so the North Koreans do not have a chance to retaliate against them if they are dead set on doing this.

The Interview: South Korea bans balloon drop of DVDs into North http://t.co/tPhGDM01oF

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) March 20, 2015

I think a lot of this growing trend has to do with the debt many of these people ran up to escape North Korea and then having a difficult time integrating into the hyper-competitive South Korean society:

A North Korean defector from North Hamgyong Province was given a prison sentence after getting caught smuggling drugs into South Korea from China last year.

The 38-year-old had looked in vain for a job and was desperate for money when she was approached by another defector who tempted her with the chance of some quick cash.

The defector told police she needed money to feed herself and felt rejected by South Korean society.

More defectors end up in prison here every year. In 2011 there were 51 defectors behind bars here, but that had risen to 97 in the first half of last year. Crimes range from drug possession, fraud and embezzlement to assault and murder.

A police officer said, “Defectors tend to be vulnerable to crime because they are often poor and face discrimination.”  [Chosun Ilbo]