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Ceaseless Flights of North Koreans
Human Traffickers Prey on North Korean Women
By Choi Bo-shik
July 21, 2002
Shenyang - A young North Korean lady recently called on this reporter at my
lodging in Shenyang, China at around 10:00pm; she looked strained. Lee Ju-0k
(alias), 23, lives on prostitution, charging 200 yuan, equivalent to about W160
won or US$0.13, per service. She used to be a member of Pyongyang "shock
troops," a paramilitary engineer unit. "Escaping home one day without leave, I
found my mother haggard and my father had starved to death quite a while ago.
That prompted me to cross the Tumen River. I was caught by a group of smugglers
on the Chinese border, and was led to an ethnic Korean farmer. Later I learned
that I had been sold to him for 8,000 yuan."
A virgin at the time, she was forced to marry the ethnic Korean. Escaping from
him in the night, she came to Shenyang via Changchun. "To survive, I have had
nothing but flesh to offer," said she. Earlier this year, she was detained by
Chinese security police.
"When caught, I had 300 yuan. To keep the money, I put it in plastic into my
anus. Some ladies hide money in their vagina. Following a 40-day detention in
Shenyang prison, I was sent back to Shinuiju. Though I was searched naked at
the prison there, the hidden notes were safe. Released in 45 days, I bought
meals with the money. With my health recovered somewhat, I again escaped from
the land."
Since a series of groups of North Korean refugees succeeded to come to the
South by rushing into foreign diplomatic missions in China, Chinese authorities
have intensified their crackdown on escapees from the North. No North Korean
escapees are to be seen any more loitering in market streets of Shenyang and
Yanji.
If they are unable to produce identification cards or speak Chinese in roadside
checks, they are placed under detention immediately. Over 10,000 North Korean
refugees have been deported to the North since last year. Nevertheless, the
intensified crackdowns appear to have failed to block the flights into China of
North Koreans. North Korean refugees in China are estimated to number over
50,000, according to the United States Commission for Refugees. Meanwhile South
Korean agencies helping them put the estimate at between 200,000 and 300,000.
At around 8:00pm early in July, it was raining in a Chinese border village just
across the Tumen River, which was as narrow as 7m in width. Bribed North Korean
border guards had already left their guard post. Instead three women appeared
from behind bushes where they were hiding. They soon waded across the river.
Waiting for them on the Chinese border was an ethnic Korean, Kim, 33, who used
to smuggle second-hand Japanese-made cars into the North. Since he was severely
punished by Chinese authorities for smuggling two years ago, he switched his
job to human traffic. After assisting North Korean women to cross the river, he
sells them off in China.
The three women who crossed the river were led to an empty farmer's house, a
hideout for smugglers. Jung Kyong-ok (alias), 25, hailing from Chongjin, North
Hamgyong Province, though plagued with fear and tension, took off her wet
clothes and dried them. Why had she, only six months into her marriage, crossed
the river? "You should be well aware of the situation in the North," she
responded. Evidently concerned about the fate in store for her, she appealed to
this reporter, "Would it be possible at all for me to follow you?"
Human traffic organizations are at work in the border area. Across the border,
ethnic Korean smugglers are positioned on one side and their North Korean
contacts on the other. They communicate with one another with cellular phones.
Portable Chinese phones operate in the adjacent North Korean border area as
well. At the behest of Korean-Chinese smugglers, some men in the North guide
women fleeing from the land to the border at the commission of about 500 yuan
per head. Such women are sold for 3,000-10,000 yuan per head in China.
"A fourth of North Korean escapees are females, many of whom are targeted by
organized crimes and forced to engage in prostitution following repeated
rapes," maintained Amnesty International recently.
The escapees have pursued their desire of survival. Once in China, meals are
available for the time being. Most of them intend to return home carrying money
earned in China. But the conditions have deteriorated for them to stay in China
because of the intensified crackdowns.
The escapees, being chased after, are obsessed with a desire to reach South
Korea. A large sum of settlement fund they would receive in the South is
certainly a major incentive. But the road getting to the South is more further
away, more risky and less predictable than that crossing the border.
Intervening here without exception are the so-called brokers.
Kim Song-ja (alias), 44) and five fellow escapees, who had been hiding in
Yanji, boarded a train destined to Changchung in February this year. Another
group of nine refugees joined them there. An ethnic Korean broker was supposed
to take them to Inner Mongolia aboard a motor vehicle. But the scheme fell
through when the broker, just prior to departure, asked them to pay in advance
a fee of 5,000 yuan per head, only to be rejected.
"Getting off a vehicle, escapees have to walk across the desert for three days
and nights, each carrying his or her food. No small number of people are lost
on the way and die," explained a broker. "If they are fortunate enough to move
in the right direction, they can reach Mongolia's border wires. It's a must for
their survival to get caught by Mongolian guards, because that's the surest way
for them to enter Mongolia. Once in Mongolia, the South Korean Embassy there
provides assistance to refugees."
Once reaching the South is assured, North Korean refugees are ready to travel
to not only Mongolia in the north, but also Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in
the south. Some women were bold enough to climb over the 2.5m-high fence of the
Japanese Legation in Shenyang, and rush the front gate of the South Korean
Embassy in Beijing, protected by layers of wire fences. Artificial barriers can
only block the violent current of flights for survival momentarily.
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