Female Defectors Plights

Issue Requires Greater Attention From Government, Society

Much has been made about the predicament and human rights abuses suffered by North Korean defectors, not just abroad but also here. Yet shamefully little has been done to correct these problems on the part of both the government and overall society, dealing additional blows to the newly arrived, especially the weaker group of women.

The latest testament to their plights can be seen in a recent report by the National Human Rights Commission based on interviews with hundreds of female defectors.

``We were slaves, or worse than that, treated like animals," said a defector describing her life in hiding in China, marked by the exploitation of labor, sexual abuses and human trafficking. Those who came here via other third countries also looked back on subhuman conditions in detention camps where they couldn't use toilets after dark or even had to ``buy" sitting space.

China has long maintained it has handled the defectors according to the domestic and international laws as well as humanitarian principles, but the defectors' testimonies show otherwise. Even acknowledging the special relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang, the time has long passed for the Chinese government to treat these virtual refugees as such. Unless it stops forcing the repatriation of defectors, China's soaring economic status won't bring it global prestige befitting the ``G-2" title.

It is the South Korean government, however, that should call on China and other Asian neighbors, including Thailand, Cambodia and Mongolia, to provide more humane treatment to refugees, but whether Seoul has lived up to its duty leaves a big question mark.

Not least because a more disappointing part of the commission's report concerns the female defectors' life in Korea. Above all, the government's defector policy is too fragmentary and demonstrative rather than providing substantive help.

The vocational education, for instance, centers around sundry, low-paying work cooking and nursing, based on a prejudice that it would be enough for them to eke out a living. The one-size-fits-all training course in disregard of the women's personal differences, is not just undesirable but unproductive, considering not a few of these defectors received higher education in North Korea, where the educational zeal is reportedly not much weaker than in the South.

Marital abuses of female defectors by their South Korean husbands should also be treated on the same basis as that of immigrant wives from other Asian countries. This is especially urgent, as most of these women are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder both because of their nightmarish experiences during their escape and because of their sense of guilt about their children and other family members left behind.

Even more serious is the deeply-rooted bias of the South Korean society, which drives employers not to hire defectors, thinking they came from the ``communist North where people are good only at enjoying free state services but poor at earning their own living." Not all of these prejudices may be without grounds. But it only points to why the government ought to step up efforts to help them better adjust to a capitalist economy. As a defector-turned-musician once said, ``The defector issue is the future that came in advance."

At a time when the percentage of women among defectors has increased from a single-digit level to almost half, the government can ill afford to waste any more time coming up with a defector policy that groups people based on their age, gender, health and other personal circumstances.