Status of North Korean Defectors and Policies of Countries Concerned with Them

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As the poor conditions of the North Korean refugees hiding overseas became widely known, the problems of North Korean defectors emerged as an international issue. Academic interest in overseas North Korean defectors has been concentrated on issues such as scale, motivation and/or conditions, lives and human rights, female trafficking, punishment after repatriation to North Korea, nature and legal status in international law, international moves, and the policies of countries concerned with them. But as the phenomenon of North Korean refugees was drawn out, the circumstances of North Korean defectors overseas displayed a pattern of change as other things also changed, for example, conditions and policies concerning North Korean defectors, their circumstances in North Korea and China, the various countries that defectors passed through in the process of their international migration, and the countries of their final destination. In this paper, the aspects of changing situations for North Korean defectors abroad and the policies of the countries concerned resulting from the prolonged defection phenomena will be discussed.
As the push factors of the North interact with pull factors of South Korea and other related countries, the overall scale of North Korean defectors in China has been decreasing. While the old problems of North Korean defectors such as human trafficking and uncertain status have remained unchanged, children born out of marriages between North Korean women and Chinese men have emerged as a more pressing issue. As an increasing number of North Koreans migrate to a third country from China, they could now be found in extended areas, including the U.S., the EU, and Canada.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Summary
• I. INTRODUCTION
• II. SHIFTS IN THE SCALE AND ASPECT OF NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS IN CHINA
• 1. Constant Reductions in the Scale of North Korean Defectors in China
• 2. Shifts in the Pattern of the Problems of North Korean Defectors in China
• III. POLICIES ON NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS IN COUNTRIES CONCERNED
• 1. South Korea
• 2. China
• 3. United States of America
• 4. Japan
• 5. European Union and Canada
• 6. Russia
• 7. Stopover Countries En Route to Settlement Destinations
• IV. CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES