Why would anyone choose to live in or return to a hermit state? The answers are complex and include regret, says this North Korea analyst.
. What’s more, North Korean media now claim the American citizen wants to stay in North Korea “or a third country” due to the “inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army”.
,” North Korea’s KCNA reported last week, adding that King “expressed his willingness to seek refuge in the DPRK or a third country”., he is not the only American soldier to defect to the hermit state. Back in 1962, US Army soldier James Joseph Dresnok crossed the DMZ into the North and ended up living in the country until his death in 2016, having even appeared in many North Korean films.
File photo. US Private Travis T King is seen in this picture taken during a tour of the tightly controlled Joint Security Area on the border between the two Koreas on Jul 18, 2023. face countless challenges ranging from integrating into a fast-paced, modern society to difficulty finding stable jobs and making ends meet. According to a 2022 survey published by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights , North Korean defectors earn about 74.
In fact, some would rather return to North Korea altogether. According to the 2022 NKDB report, 18.8 per cent of surveyed defectors said they had thought about going back to the North. Another survey published the same year by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies showed that 18.5 per cent of North Korean defectors expressed that they “regret” moving to South Korea.
The cases of Kim Ryon-hui, 48, and Kwon Cheol-nam, 44, fall under this category and made headlines in 2017. Moreover, although official statistics only identify 29 re-defectors, this figure is likely to be much higher as the whereabouts of around 900 defectors were reportedly unknown as of 2017.Not all re-defectors go back to the North willingly, however. Some return because their family is in danger or due to heavy debts. Others are arrested and brought back by force.
Others are sent on a national tour to give lectures about the difficulties they faced after defecting. Such accounts have reportedly been effective in the past at dissuading others from leaving the North.
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