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size="4" color="black">Children of North Korean Mothers

Find More Hardship in the South

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▲ class="css-8i9d0s e1olku6u0">Seon-mi in her dormitory room
at Durihana International School in Seoul, a faith-based shelter. class="css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0">Credit color="olive">Jean Chung for The New York Times

itemid itemprop="author creator">By class="css-luz7vr e1x1pwtg0">Choe Sang-Hun itemprop="name"> Nov. 25, 2018

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">SEOUL, South Korea - After Seon-mi’s mother escaped North Korea,
hoping to find her way to South Korea, she was sold by traffickers to a man
in a northeastern Chinese village.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">The man was a violent schizophrenic, but the mother was trapped,
according to Seon-mi’s South Korean caretakers. She lacked proper papers in
China and was vulnerable to forced repatriation to North Korea, where she could
face imprisonment, torture or worse. The two had a child, Seon-mi, who is now
11.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">More than 32,000 North Koreans have escaped to South Korea since
a
famine hit their country in the 1990s color="navy">, and their harrowing journeys are often made worse by having
to spend years in limbo in China, according to defectors, human rights researchers
and South Korean officials. Some are trapped there for years, forced to work
in the sex industry or live with men in the countryside who could not find Chinese
wives before the women enlist the help of human rights activists and smugglers
to reach South Korea.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">When Seon-mi was about 6, her Chinese father murdered his own
parents with a knife and then killed himself. But before he did so, he slashed
Seon-mi nine times in the chin, neck and shoulder. Despite repeated plastic
surgeries in South Korea, which the mother and daughter finally reached, the
girl’s scars are still visible.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“I used to cry in the corner of the room while my father thrashed
my mom,”
color="navy">she recalled of her early years in China. style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue"> “She once attempted suicide with rat poison,” lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;">
color="navy">said Seon-mi, who, like other children interviewed for this article,
is identified by first name only to protect her privacy.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In recent years, 80 percent of North Korean migrants reaching
the South have been women, and almost all of them fled through China.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">Human rights activists, Christian missionaries and smugglers help
many defectors get from China to countries like Laos and Thailand, where they
can request asylum in South Korean embassies and eventually get to the South.
Seon-mi’s mother reached South Korea with the help of a smuggler and later
sent for Seon-mi, who could go there legally because, having been born in China,
she held a Chinese passport.

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▲ Seon-mi, third from
right, Mi-yeon, second from right, and Da-hee, right, during choir practice
in October at the Durihana school. color="olive">Credit Jean Chung for The New
York Times

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">But many of the women and their Chinese-born children find that
their suffering is not over once they finally settle in South Korea. Because
the children were born in China, South Korea’s government does not officially
consider them defectors from the North. That means they get limited access to
the governmental support normally given to defectors, like free health care,
free college enrollment and housing subsidies.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">About 1,530 Chinese-born children of North Korean defectors have
been enrolled in South Korean schools, according to government data. Classmates
often taunt them for their background and for not speaking Korean well. Further
complicating matters is that their mothers often start new families with men
they meet in South Korea, straining ties at home.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">Many drop out of school and end up in shelters, like the Rev. lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;">
target="_blank">Chun Ki-won’ lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">s
target="_blank">Durihana International School
color="navy">in Seoul, as Seon-mi did soon after her arrival in South Korea
in 2015. Her mother and her stepfather decided that she could not adapt to South
Korea’s public schools.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“These children are more disadvantaged than North Korean defectors
themselves,” Mr.
Chun said. color="blue">“Giving them South Korean citizenship is about all the government
does for them.”

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">On a recent Friday, the doors of the three-story shelter bore
eviction orders. The building had been included in a redevelopment project,
and Mr. Chun, at any rate, hadn’t gotten enough donations to pay the rent.
Inside, a choir of defectors’ children practiced with teenage volunteers from
South Korean families.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“I am not alone,” color="navy">they sang.
color="blue">“For all my scars, I can still smile.”

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“Making the refugee children smile has been one of the hardest
parts of the choir practice,” color="navy">said Kim Hee-churl, the general manager of the Korean Federation
for Choral Music, who volunteered to coach the children. style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;">
color="blue">“This is more like a therapy session to instill them with self-confidence.”

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In a barely audible voice, Won-hyok, 14, said he and his younger
brother, both born in North Korea, preferred the shelter to living with their
father, his new wife and their baby.

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▲ class="css-8i9d0s e1olku6u0">Won-hyok, top, with another
student in the living room of their Durihana dorm. color="olive">Credit Jean Chung for The New
York Times

color="navy">Da-hee, 13, who was born in South Korea, used to get into fistfights
with classmates who called her a color="blue"> “commie” color="navy"> because both of her parents had fled the North. By the time she
was brought to the shelter in August, she had been living on the streets, smoking,
drinking and stealing coins from laundromats.

color="navy">Most of the 60 children in Mr. Chun’s shelter, like Seon-mi,
were born in China.

color="navy">Mi-yeon, 15, grew up in Mudanjiang in northeastern China, where
she often saw her alcoholic Chinese father beat up her North Korean mother.

color="navy">Amid the family violence, Mi-yeon learned that her father had
color="blue">“bought” color="navy"> her mother for 6,500 renminbi ($943). Her father once reported
her mother as an illegal migrant to the Chinese police, so she was sent back
to North Korea. After she was released from prison there and made her way back
to China, he bought her again.

color="navy">Mi-yeon tagged along when her mother fled China with the help
of smugglers in 2014. On their way to South Korea via Laos, the two met other
North Korean women fleeing the Chinese men who had purchased them. One woman
said her color="blue">“husband” color="navy">showed her off by forcing her to appear naked before his friends.

color="blue">“Many Chinese men treated their North Korean wives nicely, buying
them identification documents, but others treated their women like slaves or
toys,” color="navy"> Mi-yeon said. color="blue">“I wanted my mom to live free from my father and free from the
fear of getting caught by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea again.”

color="navy">A recent
report
from Human Rights Watch
color="navy">condemned the widespread sexual violence that women repatriated
from China suffer in North Korean prisons.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In South Korea, Mi-yeon had trouble making friends in school after
rumors spread that she was from China. Her mother worked overtime and hardly
had time to look after her, and she began seeing another man. So Mi-yeon came
to the shelter in 2016.

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▲ class="css-8i9d0s e1olku6u0">Mi-yeon, left, in her dorm room with Seon-mi.
Credit color="olive">Jean Chung for The New York Times

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In April of last year, a quiet girl who lived at the shelter, lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;">
target="_blank">Choon-mi,
color="navy">went to stay with her mother, who worked late into the night at
a restaurant. But Choon-mi ended up trying to kill herself by jumping from her
mother’s ninth-floor apartment.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“I missed my mom so much and had so much to discuss with her,
but she was not always there for me,” color="navy"> said Choon-mi, 17. Despite the height from which she jumped,
she survived her suicide attempt and is now able to walk again.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">Some lawmakers have tried to enact laws to expand the benefits
for children of North Korean defectors, especially those born in China. But
their efforts remain stalled for lack of support in South Korea, where ensuring
human rights for North Koreans has rarely been a priority.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In recent years, South Koreans have become more skeptical about
increasing government subsidies for defectors, increasingly seeing them as competitors
in a tough labor market, according to a survey released last month by the Institute
for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. The same survey
found that fewer than 30 percent of South Koreans want the government to accept
all asylum seekers from the North, down from 44 percent a decade earlier.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">In the South’s proposed budget for next year, President Moon
Jae-in’s progressive government has slashed funds for helping defectors resettle,
while sharply increasing expenditures for potential economic cooperation with
North Korea. His target="_blank">priority remains building inter-Korean ties lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy"> and resolving the crisis over the North’s nuclear weapons program.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">The government denies neglecting North Korean defectors and their
children. It attributes the budget cut to the declining number of new arrivals
in recent years, with Kim Jong-un, the North’s current leader, having made
it more difficult to flee the country by tightening border controls. The government
says it is expanding support for children born in China, including an offer
of free Korean-language classes.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="navy">Mi-yeon said she hoped the world would pay more attention to the
plight of North Korean women sold in China, and their children.

lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family:함초롬바탕;mso-font-width:100%;letter-spacing:0pt;mso-text-raise:0pt;"> color="blue">“It was hard in China, but things didn’t change for us in South
Korea, either,” color="navy"> she said.