Defectors and Their Destination, Journey to Freedom

North Korea, as a country with dictatorship and communist after the World War II. From a Korea to two Koreas after second world war, North Korea is unfortunate since in five years after their liberation, they need to face their own brother, South Korea in Korean war. Not only that, due to the dictatorship that focus more on military than happiness, North Korea citizen suffer on hunger and poor condition. Due to this, Defector all over North Korea  escaped from country to find a better hope and future for their own life. There are a lot of risk to get freedom from underworld association, government from other country, to North Korean military itself. However, it's for their future and better life of their next generation.

This week, I am going to be a little bit serious (well yeah, it's been long time since IMF blog post) regarding the defectors from North Korea and which route they are taking to escape. Actually, I found this quite interesting movie in 2012 with title defectors while writing. I guess we can watch that together in weekend later. (Got exam tomorrow, wait for me until the exam ended :'( )

Imangap or "on my way to meet" in English might be over dramatize story about the life in North Korean, but it's not fake. The struggle is real. from hunger, overwork, injustice dictatorship, and even punishment has been going through to all the North Korea citizen. You might not believe it but you can get a dead penalty by watching South Korean entertainment film and lending it to friend. Thus some people escape from North Korea to find their freedom. However, the Journey is not that easy. 

This is the picture of world map of North Korea and escape route to South Korea. Firstly, passing the border of North Korea to China and lay low there. Tuman River is the most favorable route, but not many people are lucky since it's under heavy surveillance by North Korea. After that, they must go to Kumming and enter china by travelling with bus, train, and ship. The route itself is not decided since sometimes, some route is under heavy surveillance from China government. From China you can pick the country you want to escape to as a transit. Mongolia (through the desert train), Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Thankfully, these countries over protection to North Korean and transport them to South Korea.[1]

If the journey is that easy, we will find no one living in North Korea. Firstly, let's talk about the risk. Not all smuggling or escape successful. Some people get caught and they will be in prison camp or executed in public. Not only that, ALL of the escape route must pass China and China itself didn't support defector like Southeast Asian country do. They believe the North Korean defector will bring imbalance economically and politically.[2] Thus China either return them back to be punish or human trafficking happen and those escapee became slave.[1]

On the other hand, there is also problem come from the inside of defector itself. Bluntly say, North Korean is poor economically, low education, and isolated from international world. These escape routes pass by the "underground railroad" and broker needed to safely transport them to underground railroad, which cost $2500 for every North Korean defector.[1] Throughout the journey, they need money for meal and also broker cost, thus many defectors (mostly woman and children since man got their job in North Korea) become a slave and drug dealer. As long as they make it to one of these countries, they will be transport to South Korea which is freedom. Unfortunately, North Korean is not use to market system in South Korea and mostly they can't adapt to their new freedom. This is also the problem came from the low educated and isolated people from North Korean.[3] In the arrival, these people put under surveillance by spy itself.[4]

Anyway, not many people as lucky as us living in the freedom. Look at the North Korean defector. They paid, sold their body, travelling over countries, and ended up in South Korea just to find a freedom that they couldn't get under Kim Jong Un's hand. Do you think that the fight of freedom finished when we got one? As long as our friend or brother still looking up for the freedom, we should help them since human is free. Thus, let's fight for our friend freedom help them on journey.

Reference:

[1] http://www.nkhrrescuefund.org/who-we-help.html

[2] http://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-preferred-escape-route-of-North-Korea-defectors-from-China-via-Laos-Wouldnt-it-be-easier-via-the-long-and-much-closer-border-with-Russia-or-Mongolia

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/22/defector-wants-to-go-back-north-korea

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11138496/Escape-from-North-Korea-How-I-escaped-horrors-of-life-under-Kim-Jong-il.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors