During the height of the Cold War, North Korean defectors were celebrated as symbols of freedom and a direct indictment of a brutal North Korean regime. Yet over time, the meaning endowed upon North Korean defectors steadily changed. They became living monuments to the complex facets of the frozen conflict: the broken families, the increasing disparity between the North and South and, most importantly, the fragile dream of a unified Korean Peninsula. And now, with the tenuous prospect of an enduring peace, North Korean defectors offer a glimpse into the challenges of reintegrating the two countries. An understanding of the challenges of North Korean resettlement in the Republic of Korea (ROK) could bridge the gap between a policy of reunification and its successful realization.
According to the Ministry of Unification (MOU), by 2017, 30,805 North Korean defectors had entered the ROK. After an initial security screening by South Korean intelligence, the MOU offers North Korean defectors full citizenship, housing subsidies, vocational training, educational opportunities and a 3-month social adjustment course. In theory, the MOU’s Hanawon Resettlement Center serves as a seamless transition, where North Koreans learn the skills to be normal, productive citizens in their new home. However, theory is often rosier than reality.
Emotional and Psychological Scars
For most North Korean defectors, escape means political freedom, but their trauma often follows them across the DMZ. According to a 2018 study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health titled Trauma and Depression among North Korean Refugees, 71 percent of North Koreans reported experiencing traumatic incidents in their pasts – ranging from the execution of family members to personal abuse. The study notes that “depression is the most frequently reported mental health problem among adult North Korean refugees, with the prevalence of depression ranging from 29 percent to 49 percent.” According to researchers, this often leads North Korean defectors to feel trapped in a cycle of negativity, suffering recurring bouts of anxiety, isolation, hostility, and paranoia. Worst of all, this is compounded by all the typical anxieties and stresses of moving to a new country.
Any form of reunification will require careful consideration of the emotional and psychological challenge of adopting roughly 25 million North Koreans who have lived all their lives in one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. For instance, what would happen if as many as 120,000 North Korean political prisoners were released? The trauma of forced labor camps and torture will not likely disappear overnight. The argument could be made that not all North Koreans have suffered significant mental trauma, and some may even believe they have been well-served by the Kim regime. Nevertheless, even in the best-case scenario, the ROK would face the challenge of healing a long-divided nation and the unenviable task of reversing a lifetime’s worth of North Korean propaganda. In the worst-case scenario, old traumas and prejudices could breed new resentments and hostilities – threatening the stability of a newly reunified Korea.
Cultural Divisions
The Korean Peninsula has been divided for more than half a century; this separation has resulted in two distinct cultural evolutions. The growing disparities in the Korean language utilized in the North and the South serves as an example. In an attempt to purge foreign influences, the North Korean regime sought to eliminate loanwords from foreign languages from the North Korean vernacular. In contrast, as the ROK embraced new technologies and cultural influences, Korean in the South increasingly adopted words from foreign languages, particularly English. For instance, North Koreans say ‘danmul,’ or ‘sweet water’ for juice, while South Koreans utilize the English loanword. In 2016, Gyeoremal-keunsajeon, a joint North and South Korean project to produce a unified language dictionary, estimated there is a “38 percent difference in regular vocabulary and 66 percent difference in specialist terms used in North and South Korea.”
In an interview with Liberty in North Korea, a group that advocates for refugees, Sang Hoon, a North Korean defector, says, “I didn’t know a lot of things about South Korean society or the words they used, so even when I went on the Internet to find more information on my own I didn’t know what words I should type in to find out the information I wanted to know. I didn’t know what to look up and look for.”
By themselves, the linguistic differences are minor, however, the disparities between the North and South in terms of social expectations, cultural norms and language, distances North Korean defectors from South Koreans. These differences have created the stereotypes that North Koreans are incapable, less intelligent, and provincial. And like most stereotypes, this routinely leads to social discrimination and isolation. According to a survey by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 45.4 percent of the 480 respondents indicated they faced discrimination either in public, by their superiors, or by co-workers.
Social-Economic Barriers
In a hyper-competitive and status-oriented society, North Korean defectors sometimes feel relegated to second-class status. Within the ROK’s highly stratified social order, South Koreans are measured by education, social prestige, and career success (often in the form of coveted positions at South Korean firms). As a result, native South Koreans routinely begin competing for admittance to exclusive universities as early as elementary school. Unsurprisingly, North Korean defectors rarely achieve the same kind of success as South Koreans. They lack the education, skills, or qualifications to compete in the fierce South Korean marketplace. Essentially, North Korean defectors begin the economic race far behind the vast majority of South Koreans and struggle to close the gap. Consequently, North Korean defectors usually end up working in low-wage and low-skill jobs. A North Korean defector explained, “I was a member of the elite cadre circle and now I’m a computer-illiterate senile old man.” Kongdan Oh, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote that, “defectors bitterly joke that they left one class society in the North and now find that South Korea is equally class conscious, and the defectors are not members of a favored class.”
The inherent lack of social mobility limits North Korean defectors to the periphery of South Korean society. In the 2016 Unification Perception Survey, conducted by Seoul National University, 27.3 percent of respondents indicated they do not feel close to North defectors, while 43.7 percent gave an ambivalent or neutral response. Furthermore, the survey indicated that feelings of closeness with North Korean defectors was lowest in the youngest age group, 20-30 years old, and highest among those age 50 and above. With each passing generation, the bonds between the North and South grow weaker – exacerbating the sense of difference between the two. For instance, public opinion polls indicate that most young South Koreans view North Korean defectors as strangers “who are supposedly too different to allow for any intimate relationship, and that attitude is growing.”
Conclusion
At present, the relatively small North Korean community living in the ROK remain on the periphery – largely out of sight and forgotten. And despite expansive government aid, North Korean defectors remain a nation within a nation, co-existent yet separate. Referring to the resettlement of North Korean defectors, Lee Sang Man, a political science professor at Chungang University, argued, “This is a dress rehearsal for reunification. This shows that we can’t just tear down a wall like in Germany and let our Northern brethren come streaming across the border. We are not prepared to receive them, and they are not prepared for what they will find on the other side.”
This begs the question: If South Korea cannot fully adopt and assimilate 30,805 North Korea defectors, how will South Korea ever embrace roughly 25 million North Koreans?
There are no easy answers to this question. Korean reunification is a monumental undertaking, affecting every aspect of Korean society and reshaping the foreign policy landscape of Northeast Asia. However, the first step towards producing answers could require contextualizing and applying the lessons of North Korean resettlement within the broader U.S. foreign policy. For years, the South Korean and the American stance on North Korea have been divergent, the former focused on reunification and reconciliation, while the latter focused on potential conventional war and nuclear proliferation. However, regardless of the means, a reunified Korean Peninsula will likely demand nation-building on a scale unseen since the Berlin Wall fell.
Solving the problem of how to best accommodate those who first ventured south across the 38th parallel could be a first step toward developing strategies for the massive task of assimilating North Koreans should reunification occur.
Sebastian J. Bae, a defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, specializes in defense wargaming, emerging technologies, counterinsurgency, and strategy and doctrine for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. Previously, he served six years in the Marine Corps infantry, leaving as a Sergeant. He deployed to Iraq in 2009. He has previously published in Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, Strategy Bridge, Task & Purpose, the Diplomat, and Georgetown Security Studies Review.
