THE SITUATION IN CHINANorth Korean Women in Yanbian Stress on North Korean Families As noted above, most North Koreans seeking sanctuary in China cross the Tumen River into Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. With its large population of Korean-Chinese, Yanbian is a place where North Koreans have a chance of finding people with whom they can communicate and who are willing to provide them shelter and economic support.Chinese policy towards North Korean asylum seekers is predicated on the assumption that all North Koreans crossing the border do so for economic reasons. They are treated as illegal migrants and subject to arrest and deportation. While China is a signatory of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, as well as being a member of the Executive Committee of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), China does not permit the staff of the Beijing office of UNHCR to travel to Yanbian to assess the situation for North Koreans in the region. In addition to insisting that all North Koreans are economic migrants, China also justifies its treatment of North Koreans by citing sovereign treaties with the DPRK, including agreements from the early 1960s and 1986, which oblige China to deport illegal migrants and criminals seeking to cross the border from North Korea.12 While Chinese policy is to arrest and deport North Koreans as illegal economic migrants, the actual implementation of this policy at the local level in Yanbian is tempered by intra-ethnic solidarity that Korean-Chinese officials feel for their deprived brothers and sisters from North Korea. Further, many people in Yanbian either had direct experience or have been told of their parents’ experiences of having been sheltered and cared for in North Korea during the political chaos and economic dislocation brought on by the Cultural Revolution in China. These experiences lead them to consider the plight of North Koreans sympathetically. Thus, for months at a time, if individuals cross the border to survive and do not present a threat to public safety, the local authorities and police tend to look the other way. Indeed, several North Koreans told Refugees International (RI) that they received assistance from border guards when they first crossed into China.13 Since activists began to raise the public profile of the plight of North Korean asylum seekers in China by organizing groups of North Koreans to enter foreign embassy compounds in Beijing in the spring of 2002, local officials in Yanbian have had less and less leeway to tolerate the presence of North Koreans in the prefecture. The reaction of the national authorities to these events is to order the local government security forces to round up illegal North Korean migrants and deport them. During these periods rewards are offered for each individual arrested.18 In June 2004 in Yanji public notices were posted throughout the city imploring residents to be on the lookout for illegal North Korean migrants and to turn any in to local police for deportation. Crime is also a factor in China’s response to North Korean asylum seekers. Some North Koreans, including armed soldiers and border guards, are so desperate when they cross the border that they break into houses in villages close to the Tumen River, steal what they can find, and then cross back into North Korea. Since gaining legal employment is impossible, a small minority of North Koreans remaining in Yanbian resort to crime to support themselves. The same 59-year-old woman who cited the initial kindness of Chinese guards when she first crossed the border in 1998 told RI that “North Koreans have committed many crimes and the Chinese don’t feel sympathetic anymore.”19 Regardless of the initial solidarity and support that North Koreans may receive, their lives in China are ones of constant fear of arrest and deportation. They have no good options to live freely and meet their basic needs, and the few courageous individuals and organizations seeking to provide protection and assistance, whether Korean-Chinese, South Korean, or the rare few from outside the region, are themselves under constant pressure from the Chinese authorities to curtail their activities or risk expulsion. Men have a difficult time finding sanctuary in China because they need to support themselves outside the home and moving around Yanji or rural areas to find day labor exposes them to police searches. The few long-staying male refugees who RI interviewed were established in a safe house deep in the countryside with access to agricultural plots in the surrounding forest. There may be men managing to survive in the informal economy, but they are not reached by the refugee support organizations and their numbers are impossible to determine in the absence of a census of North Koreans in Yanbian. Otherwise, men tend to cross the border, hook up quickly with the refugee support organizations, access food and other supplies, and then return to their homes in North Korea. The overwhelming majority of North Korean women seeking to stay in China establish relationships with Chinese men, either through brokers or directly, as a survival strategy. In rural Yanbian, the male-female ratio among the unmarried age group after schooling is a staggering 14-1, so there is high demand for women willing to live in rural areas.21 While North Korean women sometimes find compatible companions and end up in loving relationships, most are — in effect — trafficked, sold to Chinese men or to the owners of brothels and karaoke bars, whether in Yanbian or other parts of China. The fact that women seek a relationship to survive, and in this sense could be said to cooperate in the transaction, does not change the calculus of their vulnerability. North Korean children are also vulnerable. Few speak Chinese and are therefore at risk of detection if they venture outside of the home. Only a small percentage has access to education. A few attend church-run schools and even fewer attend Chinese schools. Some families can afford the fee to enroll their children in Chinese schools, but as of June 2004 increasing crackdowns by Chinese police were forcing North Korean children to stay out of schools to avoid detection. In rural areas, some young people are able to work on farms, but in cities, because of tighter surveillance, job opportunities are almost non-existent. The reality for young North Koreans in China is bleak. They stay at home all day to avoid detection. There are few opportunities for them to learn Chinese, a skill that might give them a measure of freedom to move undetected outside their homes or shelters. They cannot work. They are constantly worried about their families, either in North Korea or China. In the poignant words of one teenage boy, “The situation here does not allow me to dream about my future.”22 The economic deprivation and political oppression in North Korea, coupled with the lack of legal status in China, place tremendous strains on families. Precious few of the children that RI interviewed in China were part of stable families. Separation and vulnerability were the norm. There is also a growing problem of statelessness for the children born from marriages between North Korean women and Chinese men. Because these marriages are illegal under Chinese law, the children are not considered to be Chinese and are not given Chinese citizenship. For wealthier families, it is possible to buy citizenship for their children at a price of $1,250, but this is far out of reach for most families. The question of citizenship will be an issue within the next few years as an unknown number of stateless children approach school age. Like North Korean children, these half-Chinese children will not be able to attend school easily. A 30-year-old woman originally crossed into China with an unknown North Korean man that she met at the border. “There are North Korean men who look for women along the border to sell them. The Chinese client pays. In the back of my mind I knew I was going to be sold.” She was taken to a Korean-Chinese man’s house and thought she might be sold so she escaped by going to the washroom and fleeing at night. She wandered around because she didn’t know where to go. She tried to go back to the house because she didn’t know where else to go, but she couldn’t find the house, so finally she came to the village where she currently lives. The family she stayed with had two sons and wanted her to live with one of their sons. She married the 30-year-old. After four months of living with him she was arrested when the police came to the house one night.14 A 28-year-old woman came to China with three other girls. One was her cousin and two were her friends. They were caught by a gang of 3-4 Chinese businessmen at the border and sold to southern China (south of Beijing). She was assigned to a Chinese man and stayed with him for two hours. He left for business and locked the door. She climbed the fence and fled from the countryside. She walked all night to the city. She doesn’t speak Chinese so she stopped talking, but she knew how to write the name of Kim Il Sung in Chinese, so she wrote it down and started showing the paper to people. One Chinese man figured out the situation and arranged for her to get food and a train ticket back to Yanbian. No services were required of her. In the meantime her cousin was brought to Yanji and also managed to escape the man she was with, but she was subsequently arrested and deported to North Korea.15 A 25-year-old woman from Onsong said that when she arrived in China, someone introduced her to a Korean Chinese man. The person who introduced them didn’t get any money to introduce them. He had been married before for seven years. Her husband is 37. She has two daughters. During the day, she farms. When he gets drunk, he beats her. She said he has mental problems due to side effects from medication. Her biggest concern is her “emotional pain.” She has problems with her husband and her mother-in-law. She’s concerned about her safety.16 A 26-year-old woman from Ch’ongjin crossed the border in 1999. She heard that if you went to China you would have enough to eat. She asked her cousin who had been in China to take her there. “There is a rumor that Chinese treat North Korea women like slaves or abuse them. I was afraid of businessmen that take women from North Korea.” So she pretended that she was a man and she went to a house that her cousin knew. She hid in a room for two days and asked the owner to marry her to a peasant. She said she didn’t want to be sold. The house found a man for her and brought him to see her so they could see if they liked each other and they did. [They remain in a stable relationship with a daughter who was one month old at the time of the interview.]17 The following account is about a 15-year-old girl from Orang who first arrived in China in 2001.Her parents were both farmers. “Starvation was normal for me.” When she was eight, her parents left her and brother with some corn. They said they would return after two or three days. She went to a neighbor to borrow food, but they only gave her a rice mill. She ground some rice husks because there was nothing else, but she could not get any food. When she was eight years old, her mother went to China and married a Chinese man. At that time, she was so young that she didn’t know her mother went to China but she guessed it from the clothes her mother sent her. The new husband mistreated her mother. He killed his own mother, and when the police came to the house to arrest him, they found her mother, who they deported to North Korea. Her father is still in North Korea and remarried after her mother escaped to China. Before coming to China, she moved between her grandmother, father, and stepmother. She went to school for only three years because she had to move around so much. When she was 11, her mother went to China to marry another Chinese man. After her mother left for China, she stayed with her grandmother. Her mother asked her uncle to take her to the border to deliver her to her stepfather on the Chinese side. Her mother’s husband is handicapped. He mistreated her and her mother. Sometimes he tried to beat her with an ax. When she first arrived, she joined her mother and siblings and lived with the new husband. However, all the kids ran away because of the husband’s abuse. Her mother had a job making miso. Her mother told them that when the husband was out, they should leave and go to the mother’s workplace. The employer was kind, and she allowed the three kids and mother to hide in a storage area (about the size of a queen bed) for a week. Her mom went back to her husband. She does not see her mother. They are afraid that the husband will force them to go back. She has her mother’s telephone number, but her mother has told her never to call. Her mother said it was okay to call once they are in another country.20 |
Executive Summary Introduction The Scope of the Problem The Motivation for Leaving The Situation in China Treatment Upon Deportation The Case for Refugee Status for North Koreans in China Protection for North Koreans in China South Korean Policy United States Policy and the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 Recommendations ----------- Notes Appendix: Interviews between Refugees International and North Korean Refugees Acknowledgments |
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Acts of Betrayal: The Situation in China
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