A quiet wish from North Korean defector youths

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A quiet wish from North Korean defector youths

Published: 09 Jul. 2025, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Cho Myung-sook

The author is the principal of the Yeo Myung School.

July 14 marks the second annual North Korean Defectors’ Day, a commemoration enacted in January of last year. Despite the symbolic significance, policy inconsistencies across successive governments have left the North Korean defector community with mixed emotions — hope tempered by apprehension.

Under conservative administrations, North Korean human rights and resettlement policies have typically received greater emphasis. Liberal governments, by contrast, have tended to prioritize peaceful coexistence with the North, often relegating defector issues to the margins. As the Lee Jae Myung administration settles in, concerns are rising that this pattern may repeat.

A monument to commemorate North Korean defectors who lost their lives trying to escape the regime is unveiled at a ceremony in Paju, Gyeonggi, near the inter-Korean border on October 22,2024. Then-Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, then-Peaceful Unification Advisory Council Secretary-General Tae Yong-ho and some 60 defectors attended the ceremony. [NEWS1]

Democratic Party lawmaker Chung Dong-young, recently nominated for unification minister, has proposed changing the name of the Ministry of Unification itself. Some voices within his political camp, which prioritizes dialogue with the Kim Jong-un regime, have argued for restructuring the ministry to focus solely on inter-Korean relations — suggesting that defector affairs be reassigned elsewhere.

My own experience with refugees and migrants led me to establish the Yeo Myung School in 2004, an alternative school designed specifically for teenage North Korean defectors. These young people do not face only the typical challenges of marginalized populations. They also struggle with identity confusion and the turbulence of adolescence — all while navigating life between two Koreas. Educating them requires specialized attention and a deeper level of professional care.

When former German President Joachim Gauck visited our school in 2015, he made a poignant observation. Prior to reunification, the West German government dispersed East German escapees across the country and applied the same administrative system to them as to any other citizen. Gauck noted that if West Germany had established specialized education systems for these individuals and prepared more deliberately for unification, post-reunification integration could have been far smoother. He then remarked that Korea was fortunate to have a model like the Yeo Myung School as part of its preparation for eventual reunification.

Then-President Yoon Suk Yeol poses for a commemorative photo with members of the North Korean defector youth baseball team, the Challengers, during a send-off ceremony for their visit to the United States held at the Blue House state guesthouse on July 14, 2024. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Human history is shaped by cycles of division and reunification. No West German leader foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Likewise, while we cannot predict the specifics of unification on the Korean Peninsula, many of us believe the day will come when North and South live together again. That belief must be reflected in policy, regardless of which party holds power. Unification planning must be consistent, and the role of North Korean defectors must not be overlooked or marginalized in that process.

Reunification is enshrined in Korea’s Constitution as a national imperative. Improving inter-Korean relations and supporting defectors are like the two wheels of a cart — both essential and interdependent. The Ministry of Unification’s duties should not end with diplomacy. It must also support victims of division, including defectors, as a critical component of reunification planning. Their healing and successful integration are assets Korea will desperately need in a post-unification society.

Can we truly speak of unification while excluding or compartmentalizing North Korean defectors? Their experiences are deeply interwoven with the very history and future of the Korean Peninsula.

I once asked a group of students at the Yeo Myung School what unification meant to them. Their answers were quietly powerful: “A joyful path back home,” “The only way to see my mother in peace,” and “A dream I must achieve to save my dying family.” These were not abstract policy goals; they were expressions of love, longing and survival.

When I asked what they hoped to do after unification, one student said she wanted to become an interpreter. When I asked why, she explained: “South Koreans don’t really understand what we’ve been through. Even when they don’t mean to hurt us, their words sometimes do. So when we reunify, I want to help translate our feelings to each other.”

Members of a civic group hold a rally and press conference calling for an end to the forced repatriation of North Korean escapees in front of the Chinese Embassy in Jung District, central Seoul, on Aug. 5. [YONHAP]

How can we ask these youths to forget the North? How can we tell them to erase unification from their minds because it seems politically inconvenient? For the 34,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea today, their most pressing dream is not political grandstanding but a simple desire — to share their freedom and happiness with the loved ones they left behind.

Will this year’s North Korean Defectors’ Day be scrapped simply because a new administration has taken office? Rather than treating it as a ceremonial formality, we should elevate it into a meaningful occasion — one that honors those who have endured division and commits to preparing together for reunification. That is a future worth planning for.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.