Harsh Adjustment for North Korean Defectors
North Korean defectors play a unique role in outsiders’ understanding of what has since the 19th century been known as the Hermit Kingdom. They offer a rare glimpse into a country that most foreign journalists are unable to step foot in, much less have access to, making them one of the few first-hand recounts journalists can rely on. However, defector coverage – which often emphasizes their life in North Korea, their dangerous journey, or their reasons for escape – often lacks examination of the defectors’ subsequent experiences in South Korea. This is perhaps based on an assumption that their trials and tribulations have somehow evaporated upon entry into South Korean society. Yet some scholars argue that this is where a new set of challenges awaits.
Adjustment Problems of North Korean Defectors Offer Window Into Larger Challenges Surrounding a Reunified Korea – Essay Analysis
“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, defectors were seen as national heroes,” said Kelly Koh, who co-wrote an essay titled “North Korean Defectors: A Window into a Reunified Korea,” published in Korea Briefing 2000-2001: First Steps Toward Reconciliation and Reunification. In this essay, Koh and Glen Baek expose the adjustment difficulties North Korean defectors face upon integration into South Korean society.
Yet today, Koh adds, due to their increasing numbers and South Koreans’ fear of having to accommodate a deluge of North Koreans should the two governments unify, defectors are often considered political liabilities and economical burdens.
According to a 1998 survey by the Citizens Coalition for National Reconciliation, 22 percent of 2,000 South Korean respondents believed defectors should be kept out of South Korea altogether. Results of a 2004 survey released by the South Korean Ministry of Unification indicated that 62.2 percent of South Koreans oppose the encouragement of North Koreans to defect.
Nonetheless, there is a sharp increase in North Korean defectors living in South Korea. According to the Republic of Korea Ministry of Unification, 1,118 defectors were living in South Korea as of December 2000. In 2001, 583 defected. Since, the numbers have soared.
From January to September of this year, 882 North Korean defectors entered South Korea, following the 1,894 who defected in 2004, according to the Ministry. In 2003, 1,281 arrived in South Korea; in 2002, it was 1,139.
Among the adjustment problems identified in the essay are unemployment, crime, suicide, depression, job failure, regrets about defecting, money management, untreated psychological trauma, finding marriage partners, and reading signs written in English and Chinese. Defectors also have problems surviving in a society that relies heavily on educational and social standing and familial roots.
According to a 2000 Korean Education Development Institute study of 70 student defectors, 43.1 percent “wanted to start a new life where no one knew of their origins.”
The adjustment problems that follow relocation negate prevailing assumptions. Both North and South Koreans interviewed for Koh and Baek’s essay assumed that North Koreans would easily adjust to South Korean society because of their common language and the culture and history they shared before the Korean War (1950-1953). Yet despite their common race and ethnicity, stereotypes, discrimination, feelings of hostility and indifference, and fear of mistreatment or attack plague the relationship between North and South Koreans.
Koh and Baek argue that this phenomenon “offers a preview of the potential problems involved in integrating North Koreans into a reunified Korea…Historically, laws regulating the treatment and resettlement of North Korean defectors have focused on utilizing defectors for short-term propagandistic gain rather than facilitating successful integration into South Korean society.”
By highlighting the current status of North Korean defectors living in South Korea, Koh and Baek offer the interesting and important conclusion that not until the small defector population adjusts to South Korean society, can the present discourse of reunification advance.
“North Korean Defectors: A Window into a Reunified Korea” is published in Korea Briefing 2000-2001: First Steps Toward Reconciliation and Reunification, edited by Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig.