 Marjo Crompvoets, at the podium, deputy head of mission of the Dutch Embassy, delivers an opening speech at the British Embassy in Seoul where the the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights presented two reports last Thursday. Center is Joanna Hosaniak, head of international campaigns and cooperation at the NKHR, and right is her translator. / Korea Times photo by Kim Se-jeong |
By Kim Se-jeong
Nearly one out of three defectors to South Korea still consider themselves a North Korean, said a report done by a private activist group based in Seoul.
“(Out of 109 respondents), 29.4 percent said that they still felt an allegiance to North Korea ” read the report titled “Homecoming Kinsmen or Indigenous Foreigners?”
The study was conducted by the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) and sponsored by the British and Dutch government.
“This shows many of the new settlers go through an identity crisis,” said Joanna Hosaniak, head of international campaignns and cooperation at the NKHR.
She said it also meant the South Korean government’s resettlement program should address this problem.
The Ministry of Unification operates one facility called Hanawon, west of Seoul. It plans to open up another facility.
Among the young settlers, she continued, “They call themselves crows (because they are darker). They call South Koreans pigeons (because they look whiter). Those who have successfully integrated into South Korean society were called ‘magpies.’”
The number of North Korean refugees who arrived in the South surpassed 20,000 last year.
When arriving, they are taken to Hanawon where they spend the next 12 months for adjustment training, ranging from using computers and cell phones to opening a bank account.
But, the study found the things taught at Hanawon are far from practical.
For example, “Hanawon didn’t teach new settlers simple things like swiping a metro card on the payment machine when riding a bus. So, one settler said he put a 1,000 won bill on the machine, instead,” Hosaniak said.
The study also found the new settlers feel a significant degree of discrimination in the South.
The presenter said, the new settlers found it disadvantageous to reveal to friends or colleagues that they’re from North Korea.
“On interviewee said he had to work much harder to prove that he wasn’t uneducated or lazy as his colleagues assumed he was.
When he got promoted, he finally saw a difference in people’s attitudes, but the prejudice in South Korea now makes him want to move abroad,” she said, quoting one of the interviewees.
“We have a priority in human rights issues on our foreign policy,” Marjo Crompvoets, deputy head of mission at the Dutch Embassy in Seoul, told The Korea Times as to why her government decided to sponsor the project.
The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korea Human Rights released another report titled “The Battered Wheel of the Revolution,” revealing the dire situation of women’s rights in North Korea.
Not only the British and Dutch, Europe as a whole put a great emphasis on human rights in dealing with North Korea.
On the website of the European Union consisting of 27 countries, the human rights issue and non-proliferation are mentioned as important concerns to the EU.
“The EU has regularly raised the human rights situation in the DPRK bilaterally and through U.N. bodies, including co-sponsoring country resolutions.”
European diplomats based in Seoul, who travel to North Korea on a regular basis, said, however, they found it difficult even to start a discussion on the subject with their North Korean counterparts, who usually fended off inquiries by saying there are no human rights violations in North Korea.
Hyun In-ae taught philosophy at a university in North Korea before defecting in 2004 and noticed their efforts are slowly making an impact.
Recalling her dialogue with one of the defectors who used to be an officer at a secret agency, she told The Korea Times, “He was telling me how annoyed he grew by the new guidelines to respect the human rights of prisoners.”
Kim Sang-hun, a retired World Food Program officer who works to raise awareness of human rights violations in North Korea, said the regime has in recent years created an office under its Workers’ Party handling the human rights of prisoners.
