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Staff Reporter
A ruling party lawmaker said Monday that National Assembly members are considering creating a "North Korea Fund" to cope with the possible hunger-driven flight of North Koreans to the South.
Rep. Chung Ok-nim of the Grand National Party (GNP) shared the view that the rush to freedom from the North has increased the burden on the South.
"Despite the negative fallout, it will be inevitable that South Korea will keep providing the new settlers with the current level of financial support until they adjust to how a capitalist society works," she said in an interview with The Korea Times Friday.
Her remarks came as the number of freedom seekers from the communist state has sharply increased since 2000 amid continuing food shortages there.
Approximately 3,000 North Koreans settle in the South each year after crossing the border between China and North Korea.
They illegally stay in Chinese cities near the border area for several years and come to South Korea via Southeast Asian nations.
These settlers' adaptation to the capitalist system has not gone well and the majority of them are out of work.
The high unemployment rate has led the Ministry of Unification to spend more to help them, raising questions of whether current spending levels can be sustained in the event that a massive exodus is facilitated.
"I am not sure if it will be appropriate for me to call what we, members of the National Assembly Committee on Foreign Affairs and Unification, have in mind, an affirmative action or not," she said.
"We share the view, though, that special consideration should be given to the new settlers because they were born and spent most of their adolescent years under the communist regime and are naturally not accustomed to the ways of capitalism," she said.
Last month, Rep. Chung was named to the in-house committee on North Korean defectors.
Committee members, including Chung, have deliberated a pending bill proposed by Rep. Song Min-soon of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), which calls for establishing funds for North Korean defectors here.
The bill was proposed to help South Korea prepare for a possible hunger-driven exodus from the North in the future.
"So far, we've discussed ways of dealing with the possible-case scenario. Some proposed to create a fund for North Korean defectors, while some suggested the creation of a foundation," Chung said.
"The problem with those ideas is whether we can find donors who are willing to contribute money to help new settlers."
She said using part of the Inter-Korean Exchange Fund under the control of the unification ministry could be considered an option.
Currently, the fund is available only for projects aimed at facilitating exchanges between the two Koreas.
