'How could she let herself starve to death?'

By Casey Lartigue, Jr.

The starvation death of a North Korean refugee reminded me of a Korea Times column I wrote in 2014, "Fund NK refugees before it's too late."

One key point then: The South Korean government was trying to send $7 million in aid to North Korea, but that the money would be better spent by directly helping North Korean refugees pay off their debts or to send money to relatives still in North Korea. I didn't think to add that the money could be spent on helping North Korean refugees on the brink of starvation.

Based on media reports, Ms. Han Sung-ok had been trafficked in China, "married" to a Chinese man who followed her to South Korea then later divorced her, and suffered from chronic financial problems.

Reporters who would not have been interested in interviewing Ms. Han when she was alive flocked to her neighborhood after her death. Her neighbors who didn't know she was starving to death were suddenly informed sources.

Activists in South Korea carried around a photo of Ms. Han, held vigils for her, and denounced the South Korean government for indifference about a woman almost none of them knew before she perished.

In talking to North Korean refugees, I noticed that there were two main contrasting points of analysis.

Politically-minded refugees blamed the North and South Korean governments, with South Korea's Moon Jae-in getting the blunt of the blame.

Other refugees were less sympathetic to Ms. Han. Several speculated that she may have had mental health issues or may have just given up after going through a divorce and struggling financially. One North Korean refugee who arrived in South Korea about 15 years ago was flabbergasted. "How could she let herself starve to death?"

Others expressed disgust at political refugees bashing the government over her death, but even some of them criticized the South Korean government because South Koreans are employed to help them but the refugees are often still unemployed. And some others who themselves are unemployed or earning meager wages tried to be nice, but put more of the blame on Ms. Han rather than society.

Reporters covering this story probably did not hear such biting analysis or it didn't fit into their narratives about South Korean indifference.

The BBC asked: "Was this North Korean defector failed by the South?" The real problem may be that, instead of indifference, there is too much government and not enough civil society involved with helping North Korean refugees adjust to South Korea.

In 2016 when my organization put together an internal directory of North Korea-related NGOs in South Korea, we identified more than 90 of them. They were mostly one-man shops barely surviving (and some have perished since then).

Helping North Korean refugees is mainly government work. There are limits to what government policy can or should do. The government is great at blowing stuff up and battling with other governments, but individuals get lost at the government level.

The various levels of South Korean government seem to be teaching North Korean refugees learned helplessness, infantilizing them with top-down, one-size-fits-all services.

In working with North Korean refugees for the past seven years, I have concluded that many government policies set them up for failure.

Universities now have preferential policies for North Korean refugees that sound great in theory. In reality, North Korean refugees are seven times more likely to drop out of college, much more likely to take leaves of absence, struggle in their classes especially when English is required, graduate at the bottom of their classes, and after graduating have much lower job prospects.

Discrimination and prejudice are often blamed, and they are certainly major factors, but companies also prefer not to hire from the bottom of the barrel.

The Hana Foundation and the Ministry of Unification provide large-scale support for North Korean refugees, but individuals get lost in that shuffle. Hana Centers, to which North Korean refugees are assigned after they are released into South Korean society, provide many services and support for North Korean refugees but their focus is on newcomers, not people like Ms. Han.

Each North Korean refugee is assigned to a police officer, so the officer assigned to Ms. Han may need to explain why he wasn't keeping better tabs on her. There have been previous reports that the South Korean government can't account for about 700 North Korean refugees, meaning that various levels of government may now be scrambling to contact North Korean refugees they haven't heard from in a while.

Five years ago, I advocated for funding North Korean refugees rather than the government sending money to North Korea. Fast forward to today's split screen, the North Korean government recently rejected $8 million in aid from South Korea. Ms. Han, a North Korean refugee, starved to death in Seoul, subsisting on about $100 a month.

Casey Lartigue, Jr., co-founder along with Eunkoo Lee of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR), is the 2017 winner of the "Social Contribution" Prize from the Hansarang Rural Cultural Foundation and was recently named the 2019 winner of the "Challenge Maker" Award from Challenge Korea.