April 17, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 28, 1428

SEOUL: North Koreans who have braved hardships and risked jail or torture to flee their homeland still face a daunting array of challenges when they finally arrive in South Korea.

For women, says Choi Young-Hee who came south in 2002, the biggest problem in adapting to their new life is marriage.

Working from her own bitter experience, she set up the North and South Marriage Information Company to help women find suitable spouses and protect them from suitors only interested in their resettlement allowances.

The initiative is timely. Of the 10,000 or so defectors who came South since the 1950-53 Korean War, thousands have arrived in the past few years.

Many face problems adapting to a bewildering new country and end up in poverty, with some complaining of discrimination and social prejudice.

Woman defectors see marriage difficulties as the most vexing problem while men say their foremost concern is to find stable jobs.

“Most North Korean women defectors are alone and look for South Korean husbands. They think marriage is a sure and fast way to settle in the South,” said Choi, noting that more than 80 per cent of the defectors who had arrived in the past decade were women.

And half of these women, whether married before or not, looked for spouses, she said.

Choi, 39, fled Pyongyang in early 2001 after her husband died but was soon caught in Mongolia and sent back to North Korea via China.

On her return, she says, she was jammed into a 36 square metre cell with dozens of people.

“It was terrible,” she told reporters. “Harsh treatment and only one meal a day.

I don’t want to disclose what I have seen.” Soon after being released from detention, she escaped again with a daughter in February 2002 and two months later walked into the South Korean embassy in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator.

The story of her escape is not as simple as it sounds, said Choi without elaborating. “Like other defectors, I risked my life to come here,” she said, her eyes shining with tears.

Divorce was near-impossible in the past because South Korea’s constitution defines the North as part of its territory even though communication between the two sides is almost non-existent.

Now defectors will be allowed to seek a divorce if they can prove that their spouse is not residing in the South.

“Women are looking for healthy and faithful partners with stable jobs.” North Korean women are generally loyal wives and good mothers, she said.—AFP