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The US-led UN command released dramatic video showing a North Korean soldier dash across border into South Korea as North Korean troops fire at him. The defector was wounded. The UN says North Korea violated the Korean War armistice by firing. (Nov. 22)
AP
SEOUL — The North Korean soldier shown on video dashing across the Demilitarized Zone and being shot five times — and surviving — was not that isolated country’s typical defector. The overwhelming majority are women.
About 70% of the more than 31,000 defectors who have made it to South Korea since the end of the Korean War are women, according to the government’s Ministry of Unification. That figure has climbed in recent years, reaching about 80% from 2014-2016, and 85% this year.
The path to freedom for North Koreans usually begins by escaping across the long border with China, with the help of brokers who may lead them across Vietnam, Laos and Thailand before they finally make their way to South Korea.
More: ‘We would never think of eating for pleasure,’ North Korea defector admits
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Accurate information from North Korea is difficult to obtain to understand why women defect in higher numbers, but experts point to several factors.
One key reason is a strong demand for North Korean women in neighboring China for both the sex industry and as arranged brides in a country where men outnumber women by more than 33 million.
“Historically, the largest influence in female migration from North Korea to China has been sex trafficking and marriages,” said Sokeel Park, the Seoul-based director of research and strategy for Liberty in North Korea, an organization that helps rescue North Korean refugees hiding in China.
Park said North Korean women may have a better chance of staying under the radar and working informally in China in restaurants and factories. Many women working abroad send money back to their families in North Korea.
Women also have a significantly lower social status than men in North Korea, which allows them to remain further out of sight from authorities, said Heather Barr, a senior researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. North Korean women hold few positions in government or state-run businesses, and instead are the key movers of an informal market that sprang up after the near collapse of North Korea’s economy in the 1990s.
“This market economy has primarily been driven by married women who have had the space in their lives to engage in that type of work, because they’re not required to show up at a government job like men,” she said.
Barr said this gives women greater access to the networks of brokers who can arrange passage to China, while it also leaves them at the mercy of a world that operates on bribes and corruption.
“It creates lots of vulnerabilities for women, including sexual harassment, coercion and assault,” she said, noting that reports of rape and domestic violence are common among defectors. In November, a United Nations human rights panel found that women are deprived of education and work opportunities, and often face sexual assault in the workplace.
Also motivating some women to escape has been access to information about the world outside North Korea. A black market of South Korean television shows and videos are smuggled in on DVDs and USB drives, and North Koreans living near China can sometimes pick up TV signals.
Many popular South Korean programs that make their way into North Korea are known as K-dramas — glamorous soap operas targeted to female audiences.
Park, with Liberty in North Korea, said some North Korean defectors explained they were motivated by the freedom of expression and fashion they saw on those shows, along with the higher status and respect enjoyed by the female characters.
“Their lifestyle was very carefree, freewheeling,” said one female North Korean defector in Seoul who spoke with USA TODAY in September. “If they want to do something, they can do something. if they want to travel somewhere, they travel. I could see that life is much freer than in North Korea,” said Yoon Ok, whose full name was withheld for her safety.
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A woman dressed in a traditional gown pays her respects at statues of late North Korean leaders, Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. Unaware of reports his eldest son – and current leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother – was killed just days ago in what appears to have been a carefully planned assassination, North Koreans marked the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday as they do every year.
Azalea, whose Korean name is “Dalle”, a 19-year-old female chimpanzee, smokes a cigarette at the Central Zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea Oct. 19, 2016. According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favorite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it was re-opened in July, the chimpanzee smokes about a pack a day. They insist, however, that she does not inhale.
A picture released by the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling North Korean Workers Party, on Sept. 8, 2015, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center front, and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, second from right, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first vice-president of the Council of State, watching an art performance by the Moranbong Band and the State Merited Chorus in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 7, 2015. Bermudez led a Cuban delegation to North Korea to mark the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Cuba.
Men and women pump their fists in the air and chant “defend!” as they carry propaganda slogans calling for reunification of their country during the “Pyongyang Mass Rally on the Day of the Struggle Against the U.S.,” attended by approximately 100,000 North Koreans to mark the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War at the Kim Il Sung stadium, Thursday, June 25, 2015, in Pyongyang, North Korea. The month of June in North Korea is known as the “Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism Month” and it’s a time for North Koreans to swarm to war museums, mobilize for gatherings denouncing the evils of the United States and join in a general, nationwide whipping up of the anti-American sentiment.
North Koreans gather in front of a portrait of their late leader Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, right, paying respects to their late leader Kim Jong Il, to mark the third anniversary of his death, Wednesday Dec. 17 at Pyong Chon District in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea marked the end of a three-year mourning period for the late leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday, opening the way for his son, Kim Jong Un, to put a more personal stamp on the way the country is run.
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While the desire to escape North Korea doesn’t diminish, the number of defectors making their way to South Korea has been dropping significantly in the past few years.
In 2009, 2,900 refugees arrived. Last year, the figure was just 1,400, and this year is on pace for less than 1,200 arrivals. The downturn could be a result of increased enforcement and patrols in North Korea, especially China, experts said.
Human Rights Watch documented 41 North Koreans apprehended in China in July and August alone — compared with 51 people for the previous 12 months. China treats fleeing North Koreans not as refugees but as illegal migrants and often deports them back, where they likely will face brutal conditions and torture in prison camps.