ROTC gets 1st N. Korean defector

Female trainees at Army Cadet Military School in Goesan-gun, North Chungcheong Province, are partaking in a test. / Korea Times file

By Ko Dong-hwan

Korea’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) has selected its first North Korean defector-officer.

The woman, 24, identified by her surname Lee, became a member of Ewha Women’s University ROTC branch, according to JoongAng Ilbo on Sunday, citing the school.

“We were surprised to find a North Korean defector applying to us,” said the school’s ROTC branch. “But we expect her to be everyone’s paragon.”

Lee escaped North Korea across the North Hamgyeong Province-China border in 2006 after two failed attempts starting in 2002.

She said her hard life in the North had motivated her to join the ROTC.

“She said in her application form that she wants to become ‘proof of happiness that breaks people’s prejudice’ and that she ‘wishes to show other North Korean defectors who still struggle to secure stable livelihood that they can do it’,” an army officer said.

Lee asked not be exposed to the media.

The Ministry of National Defense began to select female ROTC members in 2010.

This year, the ministry selected 280 females from universities across the nation, including Sungshin Women’s University, Sookmyung Women’s University and Ewha.