07/24/2003

The Tumen River marks the northernmost part of the border between North Korea and China. While the river is no wider than 100 yards and shallow enough to walk across in certain spots in summer, it marks an Amazonian divide in living standards and economic freedom. When Refugees International asked a 35-year-old North Korean man who had arrived in China just three days earlier, his initial impression of China, his eyes welled up. He bowed his head and he began sobbing. The stunning contrast between his life of fear and deprivation in North Korea and the relative wealth he found on the other bank of the Tumen River was shattering.

Refugees International recently conducted interviews with 38 North Koreans in China, including nine who had fled in 2003. The recent arrivals, most of whom came from North Hamgyong province, painted a grim picture of life in their homeland. The public distribution system, which prior to 1994 assured the availability of basic food for the population, has completely collapsed. The North Korean Government’s economic reform instituted last July has resulted in rampant inflation. The price of rice and other basic commodities has skyrocketed, while wages – for coal miners, for example – have not kept pace. Children receive no food distributions at school, and many schools have stopped functioning while teachers and students search for means to survive. Thus, for North Koreans within range of the Tumen River, crossing the border into China is a lifeline.

The total number of North Koreans in China is now estimated to be 100,000. The numbers in China and the numbers attempting to cross the border have declined in the past year because the Chinese have increased deportations and stepped up monitoring of the border in response to the high-profile actions organized by North Korean activists, such as the storming of embassies in Beijing, designed to bring attention to the plight of North Korean asylum seekers. Many North Koreans who make the perilous border crossing, however, have no intention of staying in China. Their hope is to receive immediate financial or humanitarian assistance from relatives or local support networks and then return.

China, a signatory of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Related to the Status of Refugees, has a legal obligation to protect and assist North Koreans who seek asylum. In defiance of this obligation, the Chinese Government refuses to allow the staff of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to travel to Jilin province, the province to which most North Koreans flee. The Chinese consider the North Koreans as economic migrants, subject to arrest and deportation. Those who take the tremendous risk of leaving North Korea are indeed usually driven to do so by their desperate food and economic situation, rather than direct persecution by the government. Once deported, however, they are sent to labor or prison camps and forced to do hard labor under atrocious conditions. On the basis of their treatment upon return, North Koreans have grounds to be considered refugees under international law.   

Based on RI’s interviews, deportation is the first fear of all North Koreans, but they face other hardships as well. The trafficking of North Korean women is rampant. Many of the women, some of whom have a husband and children in North Korean, willingly offer themselves to gangs along the border who sell them to Chinese men. These women see this as their only option for survival. RI interviewed several women who, knowing that they were going to be sold, escaped from the traffickers once in China. Other North Korean women settle down with a Korean-Chinese husband in China. Although married to a Korean-Chinese man, these women, like all North Koreans, are unable to receive legal resident status from China. If the couple has children born in China, the children are stateless. North Korean children in China are not able to get a formal education. In fact, many of them cannot leave the house during the day for fear of being caught by the police. RI interviewed a 16-year-old girl who, having lost her family, had been in China for four months. The day we interviewed her was the first day she had been out of the house since her arrival.  

Despite the threat of deportation, most North Koreans RI interviewed preferred to be in China. They were first struck by the relative freedom in China compared to North Korea. “My impression of China is that I can breathe. It was like there was no oxygen in North Korea,” reported one North Korean. A 32-year-old man told RI how he had been arrested three times in China, and each time he was sent to a prison in North Korea. He said that one of the times he was in a prison room about 5 square meters with about 40 other people. They had to kneel and were not allowed to move at all. “You even have to sleep in that position or you will be punished,” he explained. In fact, his wife gave birth in that position after she was arrested separately in October last year. Despite the hardships of life in China, “living here, although we have to hide, is like living in paradise compared to North Korea. Our only plan is surviving day by day.”

UNHCR needs to be in Jilin province to monitor the situation for North Koreans and provide them the necessary protection and assistance. UNHCR has been maintaining its office in Beijing and has been cautiously negotiating with the Chinese Government for access to the border areas. These negotiations have proved fruitless, and North Koreans are still in daily danger. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, recently announced that the Chinese Government had agreed not to deport any North Koreans unless they were criminals. China quickly announced that the Government’s policy towards North Korean asylum seekers had not changed.

Refugees International, therefore, recommends that:

• The Government of China immediately halt all deportations of North Koreans in China, except for those who commit criminal acts.
• The Government of China grant legal residency to the spouses of Chinese citizens and their children.
• The Government of China allow UNHCR unimpeded access to North Koreans in China.
• The Government of China meet their obligations under the Refugee Convention and grant refugee or other humanitarian status to North Koreans in China.
• The Government of China take steps to reduce the trafficking of North Korean women.
• The United States Government press the Chinese Government to adopt these steps for the protection of North Koreans in China in the context of its on-going human rights dialogue with Beijing.