South Korea

Why some defectors head back north

No one knows what awaited Kim Woo-joo when he arrived back in North Korea, just over a year after he had fled the world’s most oppressive regime for freedom in the South.

Earlier this month, the 29-yearold former gymnast approached the border separating the two Koreas, scaled a tall barbed-wire fence and walked the 4km across the heavily armed demilitarised zone (DMZ), dodging landmines but not security cameras, which captured his escape no fewer than five times.

His decision to cross the DMZ back was the latest chapter in an extraordinary series of journeys. In November 2020, Kim fled his homeland, shunning the route used by almost all defectors across the border with China.

Having denied that he was a spy, embarrassed officials in Seoul were forced to acknowledge that Kim had grown so disillusioned with life in South Korea that he was willing to face harassment and possible incarceration in the North by returning.

His daring flight prompted uncomfortable questions about the treatment of refugees from the North, for whom life in the democratic, capitalist South can fall far short of expectations.

At about 20%, the unemployment rate among defectors is six times higher than the average for South Koreans. Although their average monthly income reached a record high in 2019, it still lags far behind that of South Koreans. Last year, 1,582 defectors received financial help in addition to a welfare package, but 47% said they were experiencing mental anguish, the unification ministry said.

They may well have included Kim, a night office cleaner who did not appear to have any friends and never spoke to his neighbours, one of whom told reporters that he had dutifully left a mattress and other possessions out for collection before he fled.

“If you worked in industry or for the government in North Korea, you can’t come to South Korea and expect to do an equivalent job,” says Sokeel Park, South Korea country director of Liberty in North Korea, which helps defectors. “You have to take a hit to your relative status, and that can have an effect on mental health, particularly for North Korean men.”

New arrivals spend three months being debriefed to ensure they are not spies, followed by a similar period at Hanawon (house of unity), a settlement support centre where they are given counselling and coached in South Korean life.

They are eligible for government subsidies of 20m won ($16,500) to find a home or a place at university, followed by monthly payments of $260 for five years.

What is lacking, says Park, is the sense of community that the North – for all its disadvantages – had given them. People from rural areas struggle to cope with the anonymity of life in a megalopolis like Seoul.

While defectors struggle financially and experience discrimination, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they will redefect, says Park. “It is always a shock when a defector goes back to North Korea, even to other defectors,” he says.

Double defections inevitably attract headlines, but they are rare. Of the 33,800 North Koreans who have defected, just 30 have returned.

Joo Il-yong was 13 when he left North Korea with his mother and sister, less than a year after his father had arrived in Seoul, where he saved money to enable the rest of his family to escape.

Joo, who graduated from Seoul’s Korea University and begins graduate studies there this spring, is a success story, but he understands why a small number of North Koreans go back.

“One of the biggest obstacles is the systemic difference between the two countries,” says Joo, who arrived in the South in 2009 after his father wanted his children to live where they would have “opportunities and a future”.

The perceived benefits of a rich, free society can become a burden, Joo adds. “In North Korea we didn’t have to plan our lives – the state did that for us. But in the South, we have to take responsibility for our own lives.”

Some North Koreans return after sustained emotional blackmail from left-behind relatives, under pressure from North Korea’s secret police. “In some cases, it is simply because they miss their families back in North Korea so much,” Joo says.

“But I don’t see the challenges of life here as harsh or unfair. In fact, they have made me happier, because they motivate me to work and study even harder.”

‘You have to take a hit to your status, and that can have an effect on mental health’