NOT-SO-DISCREET BIAS

In an episode of the trending Netflix K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a brilliant lawyer with autism, Woo Young-woo, defended a North Korean defector, Gye Hyang-sim. The case centers around a robbery that a North Korean defector allegedly committed. During the course of the episode, Woo finds that a doctor, who provides his expert medical opinion about the case, had an immense bias against the defector. Ultimately, his prior testimony given at the onset of the original trial was disqualified due to bias.

Though this story is based on fiction, there is data to back the premise of the episode. North Korean defectors face a myriad of hurdles when they arrive in South Korea. Not only do they carry a tremendous amount of trauma, they must figure out an unfamiliar system of laws, most of which are based on a democratic capitalism, a completely foreign concept to these people. To complicate matters even further, many North Korean refugees report feeling discriminated against, according to recent studies.

NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS NOT WELCOMED

In 2017, a poll revealed that about 50 percent of North Korean defectors living in South Korea felt discriminated against because of their background, with discrimination based on economic status (16 percent) as the leading cause, followed by level of education (14.4 percent) and region of origin (12.2 percent). Prejudice towards defectors is an “open secret” in South Korea, according to Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University and a director at Korea Risk Group. He went on to say, “defectors are seen as outsiders and suspicious figures … In general, people who come from less successful countries are seen differently. In this hierarchy, North Koreans are very close to the bottom because their country is seen as a collective loser.”

Further, a study by the Korea Institute for National Unification (“KINU”) found that many South Korean parents do not want their children to study in elementary schools with a high number of defector children. North Korean defectors, South Korean parents, unification workers, social workers and teachers were interviewed in this study. Kim Soo-kyung, a researcher at KINU explained that, “South Korean society is not yet prepared to accept defectors as the members of local communities.” Defectors are uniquely positioned between North and South Korean society and are sometimes referred to as “pillars of unification” for the key role they will potentially play in the future. However, Kim continued by saying the South Korean public “sees the defectors only as “pillars of unification,” or byproducts of inter-Korean relations.”

‘ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS’ FOR DEFECTOR CHILDREN STRUGGLE TO GET ACCEPTANCE

According to the Education Ministry in South Korea, around 10 percent or 230 North Korean students enrolled into nine alternative schools exclusively for North Korean defectors as of 2019. Yeomyung School, which has around 80 students and 13 faculty staff members, is the only alternative school in Seoul certified by the Education Ministry to award a high school diploma. Beyond regular classes that prepare students for college, the school has a curriculum that takes into account students’ backgrounds, including missing school years due to poverty or life in hiding as defectors, and offers special classes to help them transition into South Korean society.

However, Yeomyung School was met with a well-known concept among urban planners called NIMBYism, which stands for “Not In My Back Yard” and strong resistance from residents in Eunpyong-gu, a district in northern Seoul, when the school planned to move there. In particular, the residents claimed that the government-designated lot should be used for locals and not “outsiders” or North Korean refugees who are “unwanted” in their neighborhood. During Yeomyung’s two-and-a-half-year search for a new location, nearly 700 people signed a Presidential Blue House petition protesting the school’s potential move.

The high school dropout rate for children of defectors is nearly three times higher than that for the rest of the population, while 21.3 percent of defectors aged 10 to 18 spoke out about difficulties keeping up with school curriculum, according to a study by the Korean Educational Statistics Service.

While no society or culture is without its biases, it is a tragedy that a people who have lived through horrific circumstances are confronted with rejection in South Korea.