hankyoreh

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter 　

In the spring of 2005, when Dong-young (not his real name, 13 years old) was five years old, a group of men burst into the house and asked him where his mother was. Innocently, he pointed to the closet and told them his mother was hiding there.

That was how Dong-young’s mother, who had fled from North Korea, was apprehended by the Chinese police. He has not heard from her since then.

After his Chinese father went to South Korea, saying he needed to earn money, Dong-young was left with no family to look after him. He was sent to a religious organization that takes care of the children of North Korean refugees who have nowhere to go.

Later, when Dong-young learned that his mother had been taken away because of him, he was devastated.

Second generation North Korean refugees - the children of Chinese men and North Korean women who have fled to China - are placed in a precarious human rights situation, reports say.

“Last year, we conducted a survey of 100 North Korean refugee children born in China who are living in four regions of China’s Jilin Province,” the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said on Aug. 19. “Seven out of 10 respondents were not living with their mother.”

The commission said that a gradually increasing number of North Korean refugee children are being left behind in China when their mothers are repatriated to North Korea or depart for South Korea. It estimated that the total number of such children is between 10,000 and 60,000.

According to the results of the commission’s survey into the families of North Korean refugee children in China, at the time of the survey, children in only 15 of 100 families, or 15%, were being cared for by both parents. 39% of children were being looked after by their grandparents or other relatives, while 26% were being taken care of by only one parent. 20% of children were staying at shelters for young people who are alone with no one to look after them.

Generally, the reason these families are being broken up is the unstable situation the mother finds herself in after fleeing North Korea. 71 of the 100 children surveyed had lost their mother when she was repatriated to the North (50.7%) or had run away from home because of poverty or to go to the South (43.7%).

The children of North Korean refugees in China are not only vulnerable to the dissolution of their family but also to poverty. More than half, or 58.6%, of respondents described themselves as experiencing financial difficulties.

“North Korean refugees who enter the South receive resettlement aid according to the Act on the Protection and Settlement Support of Residents Escaping from North Korea, but the children of North Korean women who are born in China are not regarded as North Korean refugees and are therefore excluded from the calculation of additional funds when they come to South Korea with their mothers,” said a source from the human rights commission on condition of anonymity.

As a result, the commission recommended to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on Aug. 19 that more active diplomatic measures be taken to prevent female North Korea refugees from being forcibly repatriated to the North. It also advised the Unification Minister to find a way to provide the children of North Korean refugees born in China who are settling in the South with the same level of support provided to children born in the North.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]