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It¡¯s been 20 years since Kim Man-chul defected to South Korea with 11 members of his family aboard a small boat. Kim is often referred to as a pioneer among North Korean defectors who fled poverty and hunger in the Stalinist country. But these days, Kim says he feels like he¡¯s back in North Korea. The 67-year-old lives in a tiny Portakabin in a rural area of Gyeonggi Province with his 62-year-old wife. He spends all day packaging 5,000 bags of candy, just to make W10,000 a day. His hands are full of scar tissue from the arduous work.
Kim has to eke out a living because he fell victim to several con artists. He was once a millionaire from the proceeds of his lectures and other income sources. But he was deceived into investing in a religious retreat, real estate in Jeju Island and a deer farm, which all went belly-up. Making matters worse, he¡¯s in debt. He began living in the Portakabin in 2001. In 2003, he collapsed due to a heart ailment.
According to a report by the Korean Institute of Criminal Justice Policy, one out of every five North Korean defectors falls victim to fraud in South Korea. That¡¯s 43 times greater than the average rate among South Koreans. Each North Korean defector receives around W20 million from the government to help them settle in the South, and con artists prey on these North Koreans who are not familiar with South Korean ways. In one case, a single North Korean defector fell victim to eight different instances of fraud and assault. They liken the loneliness and desperation they feel after becoming victims of fraud to being dragged into a North Korean prison camp.
This month, the number of North Korean escapees arriving in South Korea will surpass the 10,000 mark. As one North Korea expert said, South Korea is having a difficult time handling even this small amount of North Koreans. They fall victim to crime and lose hope after facing the indifference of the South Korean public. Human rights groups say only 24 percent of North Korean escapees find regular jobs in the South. Another survey shows 42 percent of North Korean escapees felt belittled and discriminated against in the South, while 40 percent said they hid the fact that they were North Korean. More than half of North Korean teens who came to the South drop out of school. Only 10 percent of them enter high school in the South. One North Korean child who escaped to the South wrote a letter to the president saying he wished his peers would not ostracize him due to his poor grades.
Twenty years ago, Kim Man-chul said he had finally come to the warm South. But in one survey last November, 33 percent of North Korean escapees said they would go back to North Korea if they could escape punishment. That is the cold reality in the ¡°warm¡± South.
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