Song, J. (2013), “Smuggled Refugees”: The Social Construction of North Korean Migration. Int Migr, 51: 158-173. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12033
The identity of North Korean women as independent agents who seek better life chances is undermined in the NGO reports. Women are depicted as helpless victims of human trafficking or forced marriages. [163]
The PRC government has never formally recognized the trafficked North Korean women as legit imate foreign residents, and as the wives of its rural citizens, for several reasons related to politics, security and diplomacy. For the PRC, any potential mass exodus from North Korea is not good news, since it will be a threat to regional security and domestic stability. China does not need cheap labour from North Korea, since it has a sufficient domestic labour force. The population growth of ethnic Koreans in Yanbian, which may link to other minorities such as Uyghurs or Tibetans, is also a threat to the PRC’s minority policies. [163]
During the Great Leap For ward and the Cultural Revolution, the Korean–Chinese crossed the border to North Korea in order to escape political purges or famine, and to seek help from their North Korean relatives. After the mid-1990s, when North Korea endured a series of natural disasters and several millions died because of hunger and disease, the Korean–Chinese helped them in return. [163]
Brokers play a critical role for transforming the nature and patterns of North Korean migration from trafficking into smuggling. Chinese-organized smuggling networks, South Korean missionaries and foreign NGO activists have been actively involved in the internal movements of North Korean women and transporting them across the Chinese borders to neighbouring South-East Asian coun tries (CRS Report for Congress, 2007: 13; International Crisis Group, 2006: 14). Network operators and missionaries have been playing significant roles in the dramatic increase in the number of smuggled defectors in recent years. Chinese gangs, who used to smuggle illegal migrants to and from Viet Nam, Laos or Myanmar, have stepped into the North Korean smuggling business and created the so-called “Seoul Train in the Underground Railway” (International Crisis Group, 2006: 14). Family members or churches in South Korea pay for illegally transporting thousands of young North Korean women across the borders each year to a number of South-East Asian countries, from which North Koreans are not repatriated back to the DPRK for humanitarian reasons. Some churches are closely involved in smuggling North Koreans from China to neighbouring countries (Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2008; Eberstadt and Griffin, 2007; Haggard and Noland, 2008; Onishi, 2006). Devoted NGO activists have helped North Koreans and have often been arrested and detained by the Chinese authorities. Methods and payments vary. The 28-year old Kim Il Sung University female graduate who I interviewed in South Korea, for example, paid US$10,000 to a smuggler, who then provided a fake passport and a plane ticket to Seoul in 2008. Most North Koreans or their families pay around US$3,000 for their passage to South Korea (note that the average annual salary of an ordinary North Korean is estimated to be around US$1,320). [164]
Between 75 and 85 per cent of North Koreans entering South Korea are from South-East Asia. [164]
The smugglers are so well organized that they have devel oped several secret routes through China to neighbouring South-East Asian countries (International Crisis Group, 2006).9 During this process, many women and female children are sexually harassed. [164]
Both the ROK and the DPRK have pursued active diplomatic activities with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries since the 2000s; in particular, the ROK has extended developmental aid to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam through its Official Development Assistance (ISEAS, 2005). [165]
In South-East Asia, North Korean women are not trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced mar riages or slavery. [166]
Under the ROK Constitution, its territorial definition is the whole Korean Peninsula, which means that when North Koreans arrive in South Korea, they automatically become South Korean citizens. Under the domestic jurisdiction of the PRC and other South-East Asian states, North Koreans are illegal immigrants. [167]