North Koreans with South Korean citizenship are increasingly venturing to the United Kingdom to seek refugee status there instead, as a way to escape the discrimination and financial hardship they confront here.
Landing on British soil on a travel visa, they destroy their passports and other tangible evidence verifying their South Korean citizenship and then apply for refugee status describing themselves as defectors coming “directly” from the poverty-stricken communist nation, government officials said Thursday.
The British government has tightened its immigration screening since 2008 to vet such fraudulent refugee claims. The European country is lauded among asylum seekers as a “heaven for refugees.”
South Korea’s foreign ministry believes an estimated 1,000 North Korean defectors live in Britain as refugees, and suspects many of them had already earned the same status through Seoul.
“Only a handful of North Korean defectors there are directly from the North,” a foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
He expressed concern that such deceptive attempts by North Korean defectors could make it harder for students and other South Koreans to obtain U.K. visas for long-term stays, and, if not properly addressed, might dent relations between the U.K. and South Korea, the official said.
About two months ago, the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) sent a set of fingerprints of a North Korean asylum seeker there to the foreign ministry of South Korea, asking it to check whether there were fingerprints identical to them in the South Korean government’s database, according to the official.
Fingerprint registration with the government is mandatory for all adult South Korean citizens, including North Korean defectors here, which means those with fingerprints identical to the state records, among asylum seekers in question, are not genuine defectors directly from the North.
Seoul has yet to respond to the request.
“The foreign and justice ministries have in principle agreed to cooperate with the British government, but the National Police Agency is reluctant to share the information,” a justice ministry source told The Korea Times. “Fingerprint records are under police control. Without their consent, we cannot search the database.”
The official refused to elaborate on the case due to its sensitivity in Seoul-London relations — the British government did likewise.
The UKBA told The Korea Times in an email that British officials in London and Seoul are in regular dialogue with the South Korean authorities.
“We are confident that progress can be made on this issue,” the agency said. “South Korea is a modern democracy and understands the need to tackle immigration abuse by its own citizens and have an effective returns policy.”
Experts said those who failed to acclimate themselves to the democratic, free-market state here tend to hop on a flight bound for Britain.
The Korean government educates and subsidizes defectors to help their early settlement, but it’s also true that they easily become a target of fraud and other financial crimes.
Some experts added social discrimination against North Korean defectors is to blame. Many of their children have stopped schooling due to harsh bullying. Getting a decent job is also not easy.
In contrast, Britain is famous for a well-meshed social security net for refugees — once acknowledged as a refugee, the government covers virtually all costs needed to make a living, including education, medical treatment and unemployment payments.
According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 2,000 North Korean defectors have settled in 23 countries, excluding South Korea, between 1994 and 2008.
The most popular destinations in Europe include Britain, Germany, Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, the UNHCR said.
영국으로 난민 신청하는 국내탈북자 증가세
남한에 정착한 탈북자들이 내국인들의 차별과 경제난을 이기지 못해 영국으로 떠나 난민신청을 하는 수가 늘어나고 있다.
정부소식통에 따르면 여행비자로 영국에 도착한 탈북자들은 여권을 비롯한 한국국적을 증명할 수 있는 자료들을 없앤 후 마치 북한에서 방금 탈출한 탈북자로 위장하고 영국정부에 난민을 신청하고 있다.
"난민의 천국"이라 불리는 영국은 2008년부터 이러한 "가짜 탈북자"를 가려내기 위해 입국심사를 강화했다. 외교부는 약1000여명의 탈북자들이 영국에 살고 있으며 그 중 대다수는 "가짜 탈북자"로 추정하고 있다.
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