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A teenager who escaped North Korea gazes at Seoul's hazy downtown from the observation deck of Namsan Seoul Tower.
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For the last month, all 19-year-old North Korean defector O Dong-cheol has been doing is going back and forth between his apartment in Nowon-gu, Seoul and a nearby PC café. He can't feel when he goes to bed or gets up -- all he does is sleep and play video games. He doesn't wear a watch. Even though he lives with another 23-year-old defector and hence only has to pay half of the bills, most of his government stipend is spent on playing computer games.
He has lived in the South for three years since defecting from the North in 2001. Until two months ago, he lived in a dormitory provided by a Christian organization in Cheonan. He has never attended school regularly in the South; the local education office, looking at his school records alone, wanted to put him in the sixth grade of elementary school. He gave up on preparing for his high school equivalency exam and since coming up to Seoul has led a rather lethargic existence. "This society is scary and I'm also scared of meeting people. Even if I sleep 12 hours a day, I'm still sleepy." He thinks he may want to study, but to actually do is inconceivable right now.
18-year-old Kim Sun-ae, a freshman at a high school in Seoul's Yangcheon-gu, is two years older than the rest of her classmates. She is attending school regularly, but hiding the fact that she is Northern-born. Her friends think she is from Seoul. Kim said, "If it becomes known that I'm from the North, I wouldn't be able to attend school." No one knows her "secret" besides her homeroom teacher.
She said, "If we watch a video in class on children refugees wandering around China looking for food and shelter, it really hurts, but the other kids in the class just point and laugh at what they see." She added, "If I say I'm North Korean, they'll consider me lower, and think of only those begging children."
According to the Ministry of Unification, there were 530 school-age North Korean defectors between the ages of 6 and 19 in South Korea as of late December of last year. Of these, only 105 were actually students, which means that not even 1 in 5 school-age defectors are regularly attending school.
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Young North Korean defectors write down their dreams on a blackboard at the Ddolbae School, an alternative school in Seoul.
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Because of a gap left from having to wander around China and other places for several years before coming to South Korea, most North Korean youth are an average of two or three years older than their classmates if they attend a normal school. Some are up to even five years older. This is the biggest reason why they leave school only after a few months or avoid school all together. If, by any chance, it becomes known that they are from the North, they are unable to deal with the ostracism and discrimination. They get more stress from trying to catch up in class. English class tends to be the hardest, as most have not even learned the English alphabet, and they often are unable to follow in math class since the terminology used differs from that in the North.
The government is only making formal efforts to support defectors; in fact, it is ignoring young defectors. Kyonggi University Professor Lee Bu-mi, who has researched how young defectors adjust to South Korean society, said, "The government must urgently come up with a program for adolescent defectors and provide an educational system just for them."
As of June, there were 5,170 North Korean defectors in the South. As of the end of last year, there were 581 defectors under the age of 19, but now, there are presumed to be about 630.
Most of them came with their parents or other family members, but since the mid-1990s, as extreme famine gripped the North and families were destroyed, it became rare to see entire families escape the North intact. Now, a large number of young defectors enter the South with only one parent, grandparent or distant relative.
In particular, as of late last year, there were 136 defectors under the age of 19 in South Korea who entered the nation alone. Almost all of them are unable to adjust to South Korean society, having spent many years wandering around China begging for food and shelter. Those young defectors who were lucky enough to have entered South Korea together with their families lead relatively stable lives.
Those who work with young defectors say, however, that even in cases where young defectors enter the South with their parents, a growing number of them are finding themselves on their own as the divorce rate among couples trying to settle in the South is high.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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