Casey Lartigue Jr. is co-founder of Freedom Speakers International, a Seoul Honorary Citizen, and co-author of Greenlight to Freedom.
When North Korean refugees want to return
This image captured from Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda media outlet, shows Im Ji-hyun, a North Korean refugee who had once appeared on South Korean variety shows but returned to North Korea claiming she had been deceived into defecting and mistreated in the South. Yonhap
By Casey Lartigue Jr.
Eight years ago this month, I was quoted by CNN, The Guardian, and several other news outlets around the world. I hadn’t done anything extraordinary. I was asked to comment because a North Korean refugee had returned to North Korea.
A North Korean refugee returning to the North was bound to catch media attention, especially among people unfamiliar with the context. The idea someone would escape a totalitarian regime only to later return seemed incomprehensible. Journalists wanted answers, and my quotes were translated into multiple languages and reposted by outlets in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and across the U.S., from WRAL News to WENY-TV. I even saw articles quoting me that I had never spoken to directly.
The story, of course, wasn’t really about me. It was about Im Ji-hyun, a North Korean refugee who had once appeared on South Korean variety shows and television interviews. In 2017, she resurfaced in a North Korean propaganda video claiming she had been deceived into defecting and mistreated in the South, calling life here “hell on earth.” I didn’t know it at the time, but she had shown me and my co-founder on North Korean television — I was more a part of the story than I had realized.
That story, and the media frenzy it sparked, highlighted a reality still not widely understood: Some North Korean refugees have regrets and some even consider returning.
Over the past decade, more than 600 North Korean refugees have studied at Freedom Speakers International, the nonprofit I co-founded with Lee Eun-koo. While many are now thriving, I’ve also heard from many North Korean refugees over the years who have said there were times they regretted their decision to escape.
The regret comes from what they left behind: family members and memories. As I told CNN back in 2017, some North Korean refugees leave the South because life here is too difficult, while others return because they are blackmailed, or because they miss family or did not want to leave in the first place, having followed a relative or loved one. I said then we should be slow about judging such a situation, where leaving the country also meant leaving family members behind and with no prospects for ever returning.
People often judge North Korea as if it were North Carolina or Northern Ireland. They look at it through the lens of their own lives in freedom, without understanding the difficult decisions North Koreans must make between bad and worse options.
Last week, Eun-koo and I were visited by a North Korean refugee who said it took her more than a decade to settle down in South Korea. In her early years in South Korea, she was second-guessing herself. Similarly, a North Korean refugee who visited our office recently said she had made plans to return to North Korea before being talked out of it by a friend.
Another North Korean refugee who has studied with us over the years said in North Korea she had become a successful businesswoman, but she decided to escape when she was psychologically overwhelmed by demands for money from relatives. In South Korea, she struggled initially and used to talk openly about returning. When she would disappear from time to time, her friends would ask if she had finally gone back. It took time, and she credits our organization as being a major reason she no longer talks about going back.
There’s another North Korean refugee who is still struggling. When she first came to us in 2017, we rejected her — because we could tell she wasn’t ready to study English. Even now, she’s keeping a low profile because she’s still planning to return to North Korea. She talks about it openly and she avoids criticizing North Korea because she doesn’t want to be on the record as being critical of the regime.
In a 2020 survey by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, 18 percent of North Korean refugees in South Korea said they had thought about returning to the North. A separate study by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies also found about 18 percent expressed outright regret about defecting.
In some cases, the pressure to return doesn’t come from inside, but from outside, especially from the North Korean regime itself. Pyongyang has long used emotional pressure through family members left behind, contacting North Korean refugees with messages like, “Your mother is sick,” or “You can come home safely, all will be forgiven.” Under Kim Jong-un, the regime even launched an organized campaign to woo North Korean refugees back, offering promises of housing and money. South Korean intelligence has warned some returnees are lured this way.
South Korea officially reports about 30 North Korean refugees are known to have returned to the North over the past few decades. But government officials have also acknowledged as many as 700 to 800 North Korean refugees are unaccounted for. Some of them are believed to have made their way back to North Korea, either voluntarily or under pressure.
Among the known cases: Park Jong-sook returned to North Korea in 2012 after six years in the South. She later appeared in a press conference in Pyongyang, claiming she had been tricked into defecting and expressing gratitude to Kim Jong-un for welcoming her back. A couple that returned in 2013 were introduced on North Korean TV as examples of North Korean refugees “coming to their senses” and denouncing the South.
Son Ok-soon had written a memoir in South Korea, but after returning to the North in 2016, she appeared in a propaganda video tearing up her own book and denouncing South Korean society. In 2020, a man known only as Mr. Kim re-entered North Korea through the DMZ. He had originally defected in 2017. In 2022, Kim Woo-joo, a former gymnast who had escaped through the DMZ in 2020, made headlines again when he returned the same way. Surveillance cameras in South Korea had captured his departure, but authorities failed to stop him.
Additionally, there are a few more reasons North Korean refugees cite when they express a desire to return. Some miss the social structure and sense of community they once had in the North. Others struggle with the fast pace and individualism of South Korean society, where success feels tied to status and credentials. A number of older North Korean refugees have said they want to return simply to die in their hometowns, believing their lives feel incomplete without closure.
Still, it’s important to keep perspective. According to multiple surveys, including one by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, over 90 percent of North Korean refugees do not regret leaving the North. For them, even with the challenges in South Korea, returning to North Korea is unthinkable.
When I predicted in 2017 we were unlikely to hear from Im again, some criticized me for being too cynical. It is now 2025. She still hasn’t been heard from, just as others who have been captured by the North Korean regime have not returned. I learned a long time ago that when I make negative predictions about North Korea, the regime will prove me correct.
Eight years ago, I was quoted by CNN, The Guardian, and others looking for someone to explain why a North Korean refugee returned. As I told The Guardian at the time, “North Korea is a country that makes leaving an all-or-nothing decision — not only to you but also to your family.” It should be understandable that people at least might reflect on their life-changing all-or-nothing decision, especially when they go through tough times. I have heard that even people who move from or to North Carolina often reflect on their decisions.