North Korean defectors struggle adapting to life in the South

For the tens of thousands of North Koreans who have escaped their repressive homeland and completed the often-perilous journey to South Korea, their problems are often far from over.

Some defectors face prejudice in South Korean society, according to a recent report looking at the experiences of new arrivals in the South last year — before the North Korean regime closed its borders amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The report highlighted that defectors encounter barriers to education, accommodation and employment opportunities.

Defectors report bullying, depression

Yeong-nam Eom escaped North Korea in 2010 and now has a stable job and home in the South’s capital, Seoul. But he has experienced discrimination alongside fellow defectors. This came as they struggled to adapt to living in a completely different society to where they grew up.

As part of his master’s thesis, Eom interviewed fellow defectors. One young man told him that he experienced severe depression after feeling excluded from South Korean society while knowing a return to the North was impossible.

“He was not sure of his identity anymore,” said Eom. “He did not feel as if he belonged anywhere and he became more and more depressed until he came very close to committing suicide. He did not go through with it in the end, but he struggled to find his own future in South Korea for a long time.”

Another was bullied mercilessly after revealing to his new university classmates that that he was originally from the North.

Eom told DW that he had comparitively quite a “lucky” experience when he first arrived in South Korea.

“At the educational facility where I first went, the other students were helpful and there were no problems, but I did get into difficulties after I graduated,” he added.

“At first, I sent out my resume more than 100 times with all my background – including my education and work experience in North Korea,” he said.

“But not one company invited me to an interview. So then I only put my experiences in South Korea on my resume and I quickly started getting calls from companies.”

Discrimination is not uncommon

The study by the Hana Foundation, a state-run organization that assists North Korean defectors to settle in the South, found that slightly over 17% of the 3,000 individuals taking part in a poll said they had experienced discrimination in the previous year.

The figure was down marginally from 20.3% the previous year, but still showed a prejudice in South Korean society against defectors from the North.

The vast majority of those who felt they had been the target of prejudice said it was because of cultural differences between the two nations, such as accent, manner of speaking, societal manners or lifestyles.

Some 44% said they were treated differently because they were from the North. Nearly 23% said they were criticized for not having the same level of education or work skills as their South Korean counterparts.

Jung In-sung, the president of the foundation, said in a recent interview with South Korean news agency Yonhap News that the people of the South should do more to welcome defectors and accept them as “ordinary neighbors” without prejudice.

Speaking ‘Konglish’

Jung said that support has previously tended to focus on efforts to help defectors achieve “economic self-reliance,” but that needs to be expanded so that newcomers can “be completely included and united in our society.”

As well as struggling with different variations of their shared Korean language, few defectors can speak English as the regime in the North does not encourage its people to look beyond their borders, said Eun-koo Lee, co-founder and co-president of Seoul-based Freedom Speakers International (FSI).

“It can be very difficult for defectors to find a job in South Korea for many reasons, but one big issue is that they have not had the chance to learn English and are often confused with ‘Konglish’ — a combination of Korean and English — that many people in the South tend to use,” she said.

“Defectors are given a place if they want to go to university after arriving in the South, but many find it difficult to catch up because it is very different to what they studied in the North,” she said. “They find English particularly hard, which is why we set up in 2013 to help them.”

FSI has to date assisted more than 450 defectors to improve their English skills and find work.

Identity crisis

Song Young-Chae, an academic and activist with the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, said many of the defectors his organization helps to adjust into a new life in the South are struggling with their self-identity.

“When they were in the North, these people never thought for themselves and simply did as the state ordered them to do,” he said.

“Now they are free and they have choices, they can travel, they can speak freely — it’s all very confusing for many of them.”

“But I do see disappointment in many of them,” he added.

“North Korea is more repressive than it has ever been and there are countless reports of human rights abuses taking place there, but this [South Korea’s] government says nothing. It is their families and friends who are suffering now. They had expected more from a free government.”

“Sadly, there are many ordinary people who support the government who follow the same line and prefer to appease the North instead of standing up for people who are their brothers and sisters,” he added.

“Many defectors did not expect that and they cannot understand why more cannot be done.”