From what
I knew from the mainstream media, the life in North Korea is hard but I don’t
have a clear idea of how hard it is. Even though, I saw some North Korean who
were working in a local shipyard as general workers when I was studying in Europe, a
follow-up study through internet exposed me to one of the ways how the regime earns the money to
fuel its already depressed economy . Very often, the news on the media is about
the supreme leader of the country and not much information and description
about the lives of the ordinary people. Only until this week, when I started
reading a book about a defector from North Korea, I gained some basic
background information of how the living conditions and what exactly happened
in the countries.
The lives
there were tough after the collapse of Soviet Union and increasingly lesser assistance
from its neighbour who is now a big economic and political powerhouse in the
region. According to some news online, there was a famine during 1990s and lots
of people died because of the lack of food and medicine. However, some people simply
survived more easily than others due to the existing system which categorizes the
citizens into a few main groups according to their backgrounds and
contributions to the country. It is cruel but it is a fact that people at top
of the pyramid are always getting the better treatment and sufficient food allocation
and therefore indirectly increase their chances of surviving through a famine
or a harsh winter. For those at the bottom of the pyramid, they are the most
vulnerable group that are treated not like human being and not enjoy equal right.
They are likely the first group of people to sacrifice when there is famine.
When the only hope to live is to find
sufficient amount of food so that one do not die of starvation or malnutrition,
it is not surprising at all that people are willing to take the risk of being
sent to reeducation camp or even execuated and flee to china with their families to live
underground. Perhaps the lacking of enforcement and boundary control made the
human trafficking of North Korean women to China so prevalent then. The local traffickers
would bring the women to cross the Yalu River that separates the two countries
during winter when one could basically walk on the iced surface of the river.
They then sold the women to the brokers in the Chinese small town, which was
the start of the human trafficking network, before the women were sold at
higher price to the middle-men from cities, one level by one level, the price
tag grew bigger and bigger. In the process, the women were not treated like
human beings; they were humiliated, threatened, raped, beaten and even killed
for those who tried to escape. At the end of the human trafficking network, the
women would be sold to the farmers staying in the rural areas as a
wife-cum-slave or ended up in brothels or nightclubs populated by South Korean
and Chinese businessmen. The crime gangs that dominated the illegal business controlling
both the police and gangsters and they knew well what they could manipulate to
make money out of the defectors. With limited knowledge in speaking the local
language and the fear of being repatriated back to North Korea, the defectors
usually stayed low profile and leaded an underground life to avoid alert the people
around about their existences. The lucky one would flee from their husbands or
gangs and obtained a well-forged Identity card to pretend as an ethnic Korean who
was born in China.
It was really sad and sick to know how some people
make money by selling other human beings just like animals and without dignity
at all. Also, it was so desperate to do nothing and wait for starvation that
people have no choices but risk their lives to go to a new place even though
there were uncertainties, but at least food to survive…
(675 Words)
***With information from In Order To Live : A North Korean
Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi
Park
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