By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
Last year, nearly 3,000 North Koreans successfully entered South Korea after years of famine and other hardships.
Their life here, however, is not as easy and comfortable as they expected.
Many North Korean defectors face language and cultural barriers, and often suffer from discrimination. About 80 percent of the defectors are female.
Experts said that customized support measures for North Korean women here were urgent.
``I hope North Korean women will not be sold like a pig any longer,'' said Bang Mi-seon who arrived in Seoul five years ago during a seminar on North Korean women's rights late last month.
She escaped from the secretive state in 2002 after her husband was starved to death. She headed to China for food to feed her children but what she faced upon arrival was kidnapping and forced marriages.
``When I was caught by human traffickers again, they said `The pig came back','' she recalled.
Even after suffering such plight, North Korean defectors have difficulty settling down and finding a job in the capitalist South.
An official of the Coalition for North Korean Women's Rights said the biggest hurdle for them was cultural and language barriers.
``Even though North Korean women speak the same Korean language, but they tend not to understand due to different vocabulary and foreign words that Southerners use,'' she said, asking to remain anonymous.
``Because of this communication problem, they have trouble mingling with people and doing a job despite their good performance at work,'' she added.
Besides, many of North Korean women were reportedly denied jobs.
``After leaving the Hanawon Center (resettlement facility for North Korean defectors), none of tens of restaurants gave me a job. Brokers took away my subsidies, so I had to work as a `helper' in a singing room to buy rice,'' said a 32-year-old woman who arrived in South Korea in 2002.
The singing room helpers here usually drink with customers and amuse them by singing together, but sometimes sell sex.
Due to the unique status of North Korean female defectors, Kim Young-hee, an advisor to the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, said that support measures, especially for medical treatment and childcare, were necessary.
``They were physically and mentally victimized during their stay in China. So, they are more susceptible to gynecological problems than South Korean women,'' he said in a seminar hosted by Rep. Lee Mi-kyung of the Democratic Party in Seoul, Friday.
Kim pointed out that childrearing also hinders North Korean women from getting a job here.
``Many North Korean women have no families and relatives to take care of their children and cannot afford to pay for daycare centers,'' she said.
``The government must consider offering assistant services where North Korean defectors live together,'' the advisor added.
``It is also essential to change prejudice about North Korean defectors,'' the coalition official said.
``South Koreans admit that foreign workers and wives from Southeast Asia have a different culture and language, but the Southerners seem to forget they are different from the Northerners due to the similar look and the same language,'' she said.
The government should help people understand their North Korean neighbors through documentary films or other types of publications, the official added.