Female North Korean Defector Found Dead In Her Home In Seoul

A defector who was once celebrated by the media as a successful immigration case was found dead in her home in Seoul. Considering how much her corpse had decomposed, officers believed it has been almost a year since she died. The authorities who found her said she was wearing winter clothes. The woman was 49. The police in Yangcheon District said Tuesday that her body was discovered on Oct. 19 by an official of Seoul Housing and Communities Corporations, the city-owned public rental house provider. They tried to contact her about renewing her housing rental contract.

The Korea Times reported that the official eventually opened the door of her apartment and discovered the woman's body. Officers said they plan to carry out an autopsy on the body to identify the cause of her death. Police said she had no family members in South Korea.

According to the Ministry of Unification, the woman arrived in the South in 2002 after she escaped North Korea. She started to work at the Korea Hana Foundation, a ministry-run organization that helps North Koreans trying to relocate to the South. Media outlets reported her as a successful resettlement case, and she gained a favorable reputation among other defectors.

Her former colleagues stated they lost touch with her after she left her job in 2017. An official at the ministry voiced remorse over the case and promised to enhance the system to check on those who may require additional attention.

Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reported that according to rules, the ministry only watches North Korean defectors who are not on the welfare program list of local governments. They added that she was not on the ministry’s watch list. Up until last year, the ministry was accountable for checking the living situations of all North Korean defectors. But the ministry complied with a recommendation by the National Assembly last year to lessen the number of duplicate studies done also by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Those who successfully make it to South Korea are likely to find a host of new challenges. These include culture shock, hostility from some South Koreans, financial stresses, and difficulties finding a job in the country’s notoriously competitive job market. Unification Ministry reported that as of 2020, 9.4% of defectors in South Korea were jobless compared to 4% of the general population, CNN reported.

Furthermore, in early January, a defector in South Korea, a construction worker in his 30s, crossed back into North Korea a year after he had fled the isolated and impoverished country. His unusual return created international headlines, putting a spotlight on how tough life in the South can be for North Koreans.