A Tale of Two Crossings: Why Some North Korean Defectors Choose to Return

Jennifer Zhou

Years’ End, 2020; New Year, 2022

It was a story that shocked world media—twice. In November 2020, a 29-year-old man approached the border separating North and South Korea. Climbing undetected over the 10-foot barbed-wire fence, he crossed the heavily armed demilitarised zone (DMZ) and traversed 2.5 miles of landmines to safely reach South Korea. The breach was only discovered belatedly, by which time he was several miles south of the border.

When the escaped ex-gymnast—known as Kim Woo-joo—was eventually found, he weighed a mere 110 pounds and stood just over 4 foot 11. He said he’d left North Korea to flee an abusive stepfather.

Barely a year later, Mr. Kim made the journey in reverse. At 9pm on New Years’ Day 2022, he was spotted roaming the military border zone at a point on the east coast. A manhunt by South Korean troops failed to apprehend him; hours later, he was spotted by thermal observation cameras deep inside the DMZ, heading back to the North.

Mr. Kim successfully crossed the world’s most heavily armed border not once but twice. North Korea’s shoot-on-sight policy, implemented during the pandemic, raised concerns about his safety. Military chiefs in Seoul announced that they had sent a message asking for his protection, but the North has yet to confirm any news about his fate.

Mr. Kim’s journey is as bewildering as it is extraordinary. Of the 300,000 North Koreans who have defected, only 30 in the past decade are known to have returned. Having made the arduous journey from the North, why would Mr. Kim want to go back? And what does his story—and those of other return defectors who desert South Korea—tell us about the society they are leaving behind?

Journey to the South

Mr. Kim’s first DMZ crossing differentiates him from the majority of defectors who choose to leave the DPRK through its border with China. Like others, however, his escape depended as much on serendipity as it did on planning: Mr. Kim’s flight from the North hinged on a loose screw in the border sensor system, while his return journey went miraculously undetected despite being captured on camera no fewer than five times. Once a defector like Mr. Kim completes their escape, however, they are not greeted by freedom and openness.

Upon arrival in the South, all defectors are enrolled in a mandatory government adjustment program. Their experience of life in a free nation, ironically, begins with three months’ confinement in a heavily guarded facility known as Hanawon (“House of Unity”). Refugees undergo a curriculum of education ranging from the ideological (human rights, democratic principles) to the pragmatic (how to pay bills, drive, and apply for a job).

A New Life

“Graduation” from Hanawon leads defectors into a bewildering new universe. After finding a home with government subsidies, they are left effectively on their own. Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean living Seoul, said that these early months are crucial to see “whether their dream is supported by reality.”

Unfortunately, their early experiences are often unhappy ones. “North Korean defectors,” commented one escapee, “are treated like cigarette ashes thrown away on the streets.” Consciously or not, North Korean refugees are often seen as second-class citizens. North Korean children endure rejection and bullying at school; those seeking jobs experience suspicion from employers for their accents; older escapees, unable to access the “defined benefit” pension scheme (based on contributions over a working lifetime), face destitution.

Starving in a Wealthy Nation

Despite being a dynamic free-market nation, professional success in South Korea is still influenced by systems of informal connections (hakyeon-jiyeon) based on shared institutional or regional backgrounds. It is an old-boys’ hierarchy into which defectors understandably struggle to integrate; their lack of connections only compounds the problem created by paucity of education and training. Many end up as manual workers or farmers, earning barely enough to live.

About 56% of defectors are categorised as low-income while nearly 25% (six times the national average) occupy the lowest income bracket and receive subsidies for basic necessities. In 2019, an escapee and her 6-year-old son died in Seoul—apparently of starvation.

To flee or not to flee

Despite the sensationalist rumours surrounding Mr. Kim’s motives for returning—including allegations that he was a spy—the truth is likely more prosaic.

Working as a cleaner and living alone in a cramped apartment in Seoul, Mr. Kim received $418 per month in government welfare and spent $117 on housing. He rarely cooked and skimped on basic utilities; when he left, his bills for rent and medical insurance were unpaid.

He is not known to have had any close friends. Months before he escaped, the police ignored a report raising concerns that he would return to the North; the day prior, his neighbours saw him throwing away his belongings but did not raise the alarm.

Mr. Kim left South Korea as imperceptibly as he came. At the fence where he crossed, investigators found nothing except footprints and scattered tufts of feather, torn from his winter coat as he scaled the barbed wire. His house was empty; a single neatly folded blanket had been placed outside for the garbage collector to pick up.

A Complex Narrative

Stories of reverse defection intrigue us because they disturb the dominant cultural narrative, i.e., that of the liberal democratic utopia to which refugees of politically repressive regimes should feel lucky to belong. But South Korea is no promised land, even for escapees of authoritarianism.

“There is no hope here,” one defector told ABC news. "In the DPRK it's one man and one rule and our great leader has said he will forgive people who have defected."

Watchers of the human rights situation on the Korean peninsula behold a complex narrative of repression, hope, and iniquity. The case of Mr. Kim, and those like him, highlight how issues like social discrimination, economic oppression, and lack of opportunity continue to plague refugees long after they “integrate” into free society—they reveal, in short, a democracy’s inability to holistically live up to its ideals.

There are currently about 80 defectors actively seeking to return to North Korea. Thirty-five percent of 407 defectors reported experiencing depression and despair, according to a poll by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights while 18.5% had contemplated returning to the North—mainly out of nostalgia.

At the time of writing, there are about 33,000 North Koreans living in the South. To acknowledge their problems is not to ignore the valuable work of many organisations aimed at helping them resettle—instead, it is to highlight how badly this help is needed in the face of a severe systemic problem.