North Korean Economy Watch

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
1/3/2008

Through its publication “North Korea is Changing” the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) highlighted numerous changes and reforms that have occurred in North Korea due to the 2002 “July 1st Economic Maintenance Reform Policy” (Hereon referred to as the “July 1 Policy”). This publication deals with the changes the North Korean economy is undergoing following the economic crisis of the 1990s, and expounds on the country’s prospects for future economic reform.

The following is a summary of the main points introduced in the publication.

The “Invisible Hand” at Work in North Korean Markets

Following the enactment of the July 1 Policy in 2002, agricultural markets transformed into general markets. Soon, industrial products were being sold alongside agricultural products as the free market spirit spread to the country’s distribution system.
Along with the rise of general markets, street markets, and individualized commercial activities, a new merchant class is emerging. People who are able to put to use business acumen and an understanding of market principles are able to accumulate personal wealth. This demonstrates that aspects of Western-style rationalist thinking, including the pursuit of profit-seeking are being instilled in the minds of the North Korean people.

It is difficult to say if this experiment in free market economics will be successful in the long run. More than anything, due to the rigidity of the North Korean regime, the realm in which the “Invisible Hand” can operate is greatly restricted. This is the fundamental paradox facing North Korea’s prospects for reform and opening.

“Hardworking Heroes” Become “People with Two Jobs”

As the economic difficulties became severe, work opportunities evaporated. Living off of the wages provided by the state became impossible. North Korean laborers responded to this by taking on side jobs or engaging in independent sales.

According to defectors living in South Korea, after the July 1 Policy, there has been an increase “People with Two Jobs.” These are people who are engaging in economic activities additional to their primary occupations. People are beginning to accept the notion that it is better to work for personal benefits than to receive the title of “Hardworking Hero.”

Such phenomena have also changed people’s perceptions about occupations in general. For example, the elite classes now prefer diplomatic positions and jobs where they can make international connections, rather than working in party or government positions. The common people prefer agricultural jobs with the benefits of access to the food distribution system and the ability to earn side profits by being a merchant. In addition, common people also prefer being personal drivers, photographers, workers at the Food Distribution Office, servicepersons, or fishermen.

Business Conglomerates Are Emerging in North Korea

With the implementation of the July 1 Policy, North Korea has witnesses the creation of its first business conglomerates. A case in point is the Korea Pugang Corporation, which has expanded to include 9 subsidiaries and 15 foreign offices engaging in various lines of work. The website of the “Korea Pugang Corporation” reveals that the company has around $20 million in capital and does an average of $150 million of business each year.

The executives in charge of the company’s growth are brothers Jon Sung Hun and Young Hun. President Jon Sung Hun is in his early 50s and studied abroad in Tanzania before returning home to teach English at Kim Il Sung University. He later became a businessperson. His English skills are among the top 10 in North Korea. Young Hun is in his 40s and is the president of a company affiliated with the Finance and Accounting Department of the Workers’ Party. His company dominates North Korean diesel imports.

If the Jon brothers are the representative examples of conglomerate-based new capital, Cha Chul Ma ranks high among those who earned capital due to their power in North Korean society. With his focus on doing business with China, Cha is known for his ability to earn foreign currency and dominates the foreign currency earning businesses belonging to the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly. His personal wealth is said to be over $10 million.

As the son-in-law of Lee Jeh Gang, the First Vice Director of the Guidance Department of the Workers’ Party, Cha gets some support from his father-in-law. Cha, who is known to live so freely that he was seen wearing Bermuda shorts on the streets of Pyongyang, is said to be a “Representative Case of a North Korean who succeeded in business on his merits, regardless of assistance from surrounding figures”.

The Number One Worry is Sustenance

North Koreans are said to live three different lives: their family lives, their working or school lives, and their political lives. Their lives are organized by politics from “cradle to grave,” and they must attend various political meetings, organizations, and study sessions. However, there are many people who are unable to participate in regular meetings of their political units due to economic difficulties. As they do not receive sufficient food distributions and their wages are too low, they must seek their food independently through individual economic activities.

Because the transportation infrastructure in the country is not advanced, it takes at least half a month to one month to go into the countryside to search for food and then they must return and sell the food or daily-use items they acquired, leaving little time for any other activities. Ninety percent of North Koreans engage in some form of business, and as a result, only an estimated 30% to 60% participate in required political activities.

Marriage Culture

These days, in North Korea, the ideal spouse is the one who makes the most money. Previously, when North Korean women chose their spouses, they considered the social status of their potential suitor. However, after the economic crisis, they started to prefer businesspersons and people who earn foreign currency, instead of discharged soldiers and cadres. For men as well, they now prefer money to looks as society increasingly revolves around the economy. As a result, an overwhelmingly higher proportion of men marry older woman than before.

Marriage customs are simplifying as well. Before the economic crisis, women usually provided the domestic items for the household and men provided the estate. However, after the economic crisis, dowries have downgraded into simple things like clothes. Because the allocation of estates has been delayed, more and more people are living at their parents’ homes.

Especially for women, there have been some phenomenal changes. Many women consider marrying late or not marrying at all. Reasons for this include the fact that woman cannot marry men just because the men can’t work and needs a woman to bring home money. Even in such a patriarchal culture, such complaints are becoming increasingly common.

Daily NK
Moon Sung Hwee
12/23/2007

Excerpt:

Porno became prevalent in late 1990s, first among party officials and it leaked out to the public. Nude or bikini-worn women dance in North Korean porno with music.

Such indigenous videos disappear as foreign-made porno being imported. The first consumers, and the largest now, are high-ranking officials of the party and army.

It costs 2000 North Korea won (approx. USD 1 =3,200 North Korean Wown) to rent a porno CD for an hour in North Korea. Even middle school students collect money to rent one.

Daily NK
Yoon Il Geun
12/6/2007

Good Friends, a Seoul-based relief organization said in its weekly report released on December 3rd, “The North frequently readjusts its resident registration project in Sinuiju. Nowadays, divorced couples are banished to other areas.”

Sinuiju situated near the Yalu River is the North’s gateway to China and second largest city after Pyongyang. The resident registration project has been strictly enforced in both cities. Individuals such as Prisoners of the Korean War and South Korean defectors to the North are not allowed to reside in these major cities.

In 1989, right before the North’s celebration of Pyongyang World Festival of Youth and Students, the North Korean authorities drove out those with a bad family background (based on its unique caste system) and the disabled out of Pyongyang. At that time, the authorities also banished divorced people to the outskirts of Pyongyang for the reason of their being ‘indecent.’

Lately, the divorce rate in the North is skyrocketing. More than 90 percent of divorce cases have to do with economical reasons. Many times, men fail to bring money home even if he has a job, and women are left alone to solely take care of child rearing and homemaking.

Usually, the North Korean courts do not decree divorces. When the divorce rate increases and becomes a serious social problem in the North, Kim Jong Il orders the courts not to decree divorces and the courts do not divorce people. If Kim Jong Il makes an order to expel divorced people to the provincial areas, his order is carried out as intended. In addition, divorced party cadres and administrative officials are either demoted or dismissed. Military officials, if divorced, are discharged. Divorced teachers must leave their schools. In the North, divorced people are believed to have a corrupt ideology.

Nevertheless, divorce is increasing particularly among the poor. Mostly, it has to do with economical reasons. As women engage themselves in business in the market, women’s power has increased whereas men are often considered to be good for nothing.

It is reported that women’s consciousness has changed especially in cities as foreign films and South Korean TV dramas are introduced to the North. A new way of thinking among women conflicts with men’s traditional male-oriented thinking. It is also reported that separation among married couples is increasing, and there are many young couples who do not register their marriages.

Moreover, the number of people, who bribe the courts to divorce their spouses, has greatly surged. It costs between 50,000 and 100,000 North Korean won to have judges issue a divorce certificate. The average wage among judges is 2,000 won. The amount is less than the worth of the US $1 dollar, which is sold around at 3,300 North Korean won in the market. Apparently, had it not been for bribes taking from divorce suitors, North Korean judges would not make their living.

Yonhap
Nam Kwang-sik
12/2/2007

The first South Koreans to tie the knot in North Korea wed in a ceremony at Mount Geumgang, a scenic North Korean mountain frequented by South Korean tourists, tour company Hyundai Asan said on Sunday.

Choe Jeong-in, a 32-year-old employee of Hyundai Asan, and Cho Ah-ra, 24, who works for one of Hyundai Asan’s business partners, married in a ceremony at a Mount Geumgang hotel on Saturday, three years after they first met while working at the North Korean resort.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
12/2/2007

About a century ago, in the early 1900s, no major political movement could rival the Marxists in their commitment to gender equality. It was the time when women could not vote anywhere (well, anywhere apart from New Zealand and Australia), when their property rights were strictly limited, married unemployment was seen as the most natural state for “weaker vessels”, and most professions were not for women. In those days, the early Communists vocally demanded equal political and economic rights, equal pay, and also insisted that women should be given access to all professions, including the most manly ones.

When the Communists took power, for a brief while they tried to keep their promise. In the Communist Russia of the 1920s there were highly publicized cases of female air force pilots, military officers, and ambassadors. However, this drive did not last: Communism in power proved to be very patriarchal, and by the 1940s the earlier demands for gender equality were quietly scaled down in all Communist states.

Of all these states, North Korea probably proved to be most patriarchal, especially after its turn to nationalism in the late 1950s. Nationalism often goes hand in hand with anti-feminist sentiments, and North Korea was no exception. Soon North Korean women learned that they should know their proper place (of “wise mothers and kind wives”, of course) and be careful about their behavior, least it threaten public decency and morality.

This “proper” behavior was enforced through a number of restrictions: certain types of activity were denied women. North Korea has its own version of the “glass ceiling”, not allowing women to rise above a certain level. However, there are also bans on some mundane daily activities which for some reason are proclaimed to be “unbecoming of women”.

To start with, women are not allowed to smoke. In North Korea, female smoking is an absolute taboo, at least for young and middle-aged women. Female smokers in the South are disapproved of, but in the North the approach to the transgression is much tougher. As one defector put it: “A North Korean woman must be crazy to take up smoking”. There have been reports about women being sent into exile for their persistence with the smoking habit. I am slightly skeptical about these reports, but it is clear that in smoking a woman risks some serious “criticism” during an ideological study session, and this is not a good turn of events in North Korean society. This is in stark contrast with males’ behavior, since most North Korean males are chain smokers.

However, older women are exempted from this ban, and there are many North Korean women who begin smoking when they turn 50 or soon afterwards.

Pyongyang, the “capital of revolution” is somewhat notorious for many bans of seemingly normal things which are declared improper and unbecoming. Some of these bans are gender specific. For example, in Pyongyang and other major cities, for a long time women were not allowed to wear trousers. It was OK to work in trousers, but once the shift was over, decent North Korean women were supposed to dress in a “womanly manner” – that is, to change into a skirt. Those who appeared on the street dressed in trousers could be sent home by a police patrol. Once again, the ban did not apply to older women, and in the mid-90s trousers were partially pardoned.

In general, “proper female modesty” has always been extolled. In 1982 Kim Il-sung, while addressing the North Korean rubber-stamping parliament issued a warning: “It does not conform with the socialist lifestyle if women wear dresses without sleeves or a dress that shows their breasts!” North Koreans tried to ensure that the skirts were of an appropriate length to “conform to the socialist lifestyle”. Even nowadays, in the days of relative openness, skirts should safely cover the knees of the wearers.

Driving is not regarded as an activity suitable for a woman, and women are never issued a driving license. Of course, the number of private cars is very small, and their owners are naturally overwhelmingly male. It is remarkable that in the past, back in the 1970s and 1980s, even foreign women could encounter difficulties if they applied for a driving permit in Pyongyang. Obviously, North Korean officials could not comprehend how the female brain would be able to master such a technology.

However, the most bizarre of all these bans is one which deals with cycling. Bicycles were prohibited in Pyongyang for decades, and the ban was lifted only around 1992. However, this relaxation was not for everybody. In 1996, authorities decided that the bicycle was not suitable for women. The official press explained that “beautiful national customs” do not permit such debauchery. Allegedly, this judgment was the decree of Kim Jong-il himself.

At first, police worked hard to enforce the ban, and some female riders had their bikes confiscated, but then things cooled down and some women began to defy the prohibition.

However, it is increasingly clear that these and other bans are enforced by police with ever diminishing zeal. The North Korean dictatorship is running out of steam, not least because its own servants do not believe the official slogans anymore.

Daily NK
Kim Min Se
10/9/2007

Recently, it has been made known that sealed or closed-off rooms in up-scale restaurants and popular “karaokes” in North Korean provincial cities have been removed.

Since 2000, sex trafficking has rapidly increased at inns, saunas, spas, and karaoke bars in large provincial cities such as Shinuiju, Chongjin, and Hamheung.

In particular, corrupt businesses such as massage parlors and steam baths with the purpose of sex trafficking have proliferated, increasing incidents of solicitations in front of large-city stations and metaphoric advertisements, such as “flower” and “bed sales.”

Good Friends has released on the September Newsletter that after creating rooms in the basement of a restaurant in Wonsan, Kangwon Province and organizing young girls for prostitution and the owner of the restaurant and affiliates received maximum punishment such as the death penalty for forcing sexual trafficking.

After inspections and punishment, an inside source relayed that an order came down preventing operations of illicit rooms by karaoke and entertainment venues. Karaokes removed entrance and exit doors and restaurants enforced the opening of doors of each room. Due to such management, the number of guests has greatly decreased.

North Korean businessman Mr. Park, who is residing in Dandong, China, said in a phone conversation with DailyNK, “Most sealed or closed-off rooms in restaurants or karaoke bars of large provincial cities such as Shinuiju and Hamheung have mostly disappeared.”

Mr. Park said, “I would often use sealed rooms because I could talk about business and entertain guests while not worrying about the eyes of others. However, recently, the government gave an order to get rid of these rooms due to prostitution.”

Further, he said, “Field security agents are checking up on internal facilities by making rounds at restaurants and karaokes. If sealed-off or blocked-off rooms are still reported, the business has to be shut down and the owner is taken to the Security Agency.”

He said, “People who have money nowadays seek out upper-scale restaurants for sharing important businesses. The presence of female entertainers elevates the atmosphere, but in some cases, the women are forced to ‘serve’ them.”

However, Mr. Park said, “Even if the government gets rid of sealed rooms and dividers, it is difficult to remove the root of the problem because women want to continue making money, and such “popular” spots have already become established as a means of doing so.

Mr. Park also said, “In Shinuiju alone, sex trafficking is known to have spread significantly. Women who are sold have separately rented rooms and receive 10,000 won ($3.30) per night.”

A Chinese businessman Lio Jilong confirmed these details. He, who frequents Shinuiju for trade with North Korea, said, “Even when I went to Shinuiju at the end of August, restaurants with special (sealed-off) rooms and dividers were common, but they have all disappeared by now.”

He also expressed discontent, “With the exception of restaurants and karaokes, there are no places where one can discuss business; other restaurants have been harmed by prostitution in Chosun (North Korea).”

The North Korean government sent “first-offender” women engaging in prostitution to a “labor detention facility” for six months at the discretion of the security agency and “repeat-offenders” were punished to the second-degree by being sentenced to over a year.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
10/7/2007

The Chinese-Korean border is easy to cross, and it is clear that numbers of the defectors are kept small only by security measures undertaken by the North Korean side. However, the story of the region is essentially the story of the cross-border movement. Technically, the narrow Tumen and relatively broad Yalu divide the territories of two different countries. However, both banks of the Tumen are inhabited by the Koreans, and for large part of the last century neither state was either willing or able to control the border completely. It has been porous for decades, and in a sense it remains porous nowadays. The cross-border migration, legal or otherwise, has never stopped completely.

It might sound strange now, but until the late 1970s North Korea was seen by the Chinese as a land of relative prosperity, so the refugee flow moved from China to Korea. In the 1960s many ethnic Koreans fled the famine and the madness of the “cultural revolution,” looking for a refuge in Kim’s country. There, at least, people were certain to receive 700 grams of corn every day. Many of those early refugees eventually moved back, but only a handful were persecuted by the Chinese authorities. In most cases the returned migrants just resumed the work at the factories and people’s communes where they had worked before their escape. This movement was large, it involved few ten thousand people at least, and many of those people were saved by their sojourn in North Korea.

This episode, not widely known outside the area, is still well remembered by the Chinese. Many of my interlocutors explained their willingness to help the North Korean refugees in the following way: “When life was harsh here, they helped us. Now it is our turn.”

The Chinese border protection system has always been quite lax, but from the 1970s North Korean authorities have tried to the keep border tightly controlled. However, all their efforts could not prevent a massive exodus of the North Koreans, which began around 1995.

In those years North Korea was struck by a disastrous famine which led to massive deaths. The number of its victims has been estimated at between 250,000 and 3,000,000 with 600-900,000 being probably the most reliable figure so far. The northern parts of the country, adjacent to the border, were the hardest hit.

So it comes as no surprise that many North Koreans illegally moved across the border to find work and refuge in China. Around 1999 when the famine reached its height the number of such people reached an estimated 200-300,000.

This movement was not authorized, but from around 1996 Pyongyang authorities ceased to apply harsh penalties to the border-crossers. Until that time, an attempted escape to China would land you a prison for years. From the late 1990s, an escape to China was treated as a minor offence. It is even possible that the North Korean authorities deliberately turned a blind eye on the defectors: after all, people who moved to China were not to be fed, and also, being most active and adventurous those people would probably become trouble-makers had they been forced to stay in North Korea.

A vast majority of those refugees stayed in the borderland area where one can survive without any command of Chinese (the ethnic Koreans form some 35% of the population, and Korean villages are common). The refugees took up odd jobs, becoming construction workers, farm hands, waitresses and cooks in small restaurants. The authorities hunted them down and deported them back to North Korea, but generally without much enthusiasm, since both low-level officials and population by and large was sympathetic to the refugees’ plight. The older Chinese know only too well what it means to suffer from famine.

Most of the refugees were women, some of whom married the local farmers – usually those who would not find a wife otherwise. In most cases it means that they were paired with drunkards, drug addicts or gamblers, but in some cases their partners were merely dirt-poor farmers. These marriages were not usually recognized by Chinese law since these women, technically speaking, did not exist. In some cases, they saved enough money to bribe the officials and had a Chinese citizen ID issued. If this happened, a refugee woman changed her identity, becoming a Chinese national.

Nowadays, the refugees’ number has shrunk considerably, even though old figures are often uncritically cited by the world media. Nowadays, people in the know believed that between 30-50,000 North Koreans are hiding in China.

Why did their numbers go down recently? There are few reasons for that. To start with, a remarkable improvement of the domestic situation in North Korea played a role, but most people with whom I talked to in China in July agreed that the major reason for this change is the revival of the North Korean border security in recent few years. Until 2004 or so, North Korean authorities usually turned a blind eye to mass exodus of their people to China. Now their position has changed. They understand that the border serves as a major conduit for unauthorized information about the outside world, and now this information is becoming dangerous. They also believe that the famine is over, so people can be fed if they stay in North Korea. So, it seems that the era of large-scale illegal migration is over. Nonetheless, history of the region indicates that this movement is unlikely to ever be stopped completely.

Yonhap
10/2/2007

South Korean First Lady Kwon Yang-suk might have found herself in a rather awkward position on the first day of the inter-Korean summit due to the absence of her official counterpart.

The North’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, showed up at Pyongyang Square by himself to greet President Roh Moo-hyun and Kwon, disappointing South Korean and Western media, which expected to get a glimpse of Kim’s current spouse and successor of the world’s only communist dynasty.

There is no clear information available on Kim’s marital history, but he is said to have lived with a total of four women: Kim Young-suk, Song Hye-rim, Ko Young-hee, and Kim Ok.

Song is the mother of Kim’s oldest son, Jong-nam, while Ko is the mother of Jong-chul and Jong-un. One of Kim’s three children is widely expected to replace him as the ruler of the tightly-controlled regime.

Kim has never been accompanied by his wife at a diplomatic occasion, including the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000.

Instead of meeting with the North Korean first lady, the visiting South Korean first lady spent Tuesday afternoon meeting with several leaders in North Korean women’s circles.

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
9/24/2007

Choi (25) from Hamheung, South Hamkyung Province, married with his fiancé last Spring. Wedding ceremony was accompanied by his neighbors, friends and relatives. Happy life afterwards seemed awaiting the newly wed couple.

All of sudden, serious problem emerged. As in South Korea, North Korean married man provides housing while married woman brings furniture and other basic goods. Rarely a newly wed couple lives with their parents.

However in these days, due to rising house prices, couples have hard time finding new homes. Even if they are fortunate enough to find one, sometimes police or local government officials intervene and confiscate houses for private sales of property, which is, in principle, still illegal in communist North Korea.

Confiscated houses are distributed to Army officers or discharged veterans. Choi’s house was forfeited, too. He went to the police office and protested, but police guards bluntly replied; “Then you can live with your parents.”

The Chois are now in debt to buy another house. And for a while, since there is no house to live together, the newly weds are residing in their parents’ houses separately.

Faulty construction in Yongcheon

Kim (female, 55) live with fear. Her little apartment in Yongcheon, North Pyongan Province, is so weak that it might crumble to ground someday.

She and her family lost home in 2004 Ryongchun station exploision. They had lived in tents for several months until local government finally told them a plan to build new houses for refugees. Delight soon turned to disappointment, however. The apartment was well built outside but faultily done so inside.

Rumors spread that new houses built after Ryongchun incident was so hastily constructed that vulnerable to sudden collapse. Materials were poor and construction phase was too quick. Some houses were not even equipped with proper electricity. Cracks emerged soon.

A neighbor of Kim told her that some party officials embezzled money and materials provided upon Ryongchun residents after the explosion.

For Kim who is living in anxiety, state and the Dear Leader are no more venerable.

Photo market in NK

Hwang (male, 20) from Chongjin, North Hamkyong Province, has father who is involved in Sino-Korean trade. Thanks to his rich dad, Hwang seldom goes to work and instead hangs out with friends. He owns a lot of foreign stuff, which attracts many friends.

His most precious is a Japanese digital camera. While walking down the street with the camera on his hand, every girl looks upon him with envies.

Even in Chongjin, there are an increasing number of people who bring digital cameras. Using digital camera grew fast since three to four years ago. And some people take and sell pictures of customers, 2000 NK won (less than a US dollar) per pic.

According to a friend in Hwoiryeong, it is sold five hundred won per picture taken from digital camera, taking five days.

Daily NK
Lee Kwang Baek
9/21/2007

The expansion of Jangmadang’s private economy

Several years ago, I met a defector from North Korea and is currently residing in Japan. He frequently meets people coming and going from North Korea.

The change he relayed regarding North Korea was interesting and vivid. Although hundreds of people are not dying from starvation as in the past, transformation brought about by the expansion of the private economy, such as the Jangmadang (markets).

I asked him what the most significant change in North Korea was after the mass starvation of the mid-90s.

It was the reorganization of North Korean society’s class system. According to him, there are currently six levels of classes forming in North Korea.

First is the top privileged class based on Kim Jong Il. It is the class that feeds and lives on Kim Jong Il’s administrative funds, all kinds of support coming in from South Korea, and extractions from civilians.

The second is the power class engaging in the area of foreign currency earning activity. A portion of money gained from the foreign currency earning business is offered to the Kim Jong Il regime and the rest are accumulated as their own wealth.

The third is the “moneybag” class who has earned money from exchanges with the products from Jangmadang and China. They use “violence” and “money,” like the Russian mafia, to secure the commercial rights of each region via the Jangmadang.

The fourth is the class whose sustenance depends on provisions. It can be deduced that people in the middle-class take up approximately 20~30% of the civilian population.

The fifth is the common class who depend on Jangmadang and individual patches. Approximately 60% of the total population falls into this class. They live day to day on their labor power.

The lowest class is the elderly, the handicapped, Kotjebi (begging children), city migrants, and diseased patients.

The most outstanding class is the 5th class. They are a class who has started living independently without depending on the Kim Jong Il regime and counts as 60% of the population.

South Korean administration believes that there is a need to seek a North Korean policy while considering the size and characteristics of the lower class.

That is, direct support or loans to the North Korean government should be reduced and a direct commercial transaction with North Korean citizens should be increased. Gradually, Kim Jong Il regime’s political position should be weakened and the status of self-sufficient lower-class citizens have to be elevated. This can become an important foundation for North Korean society’s move towards a market economy.

The second eye-catching element is the most venerable people in the lower class. Approximately 10% of people who fall under this class are humanitarian aid recipients of our government and international society. The latter two have steadily continued their support to them.

Despite this, according to a recent North Korean source, a significant amount of people are suffering from malnutrition among those who have been admitted to hospitals, long term reeducation camps, and concentration camps for beggar children. Why are such events occurring?

The defector said that when the rice that the South Korean government sends arrives at the North Korean harbor, North Korean authorities or organizations immediately sell them for money.

Similar testimonies have come forth from North Korean civilians. Rice which is sold at the harbor can only be bought with foreign currency. People who can purchase rice by paying foreign currency are “moneybags” for a portion of bureaucrats who have accumulated wealth. Moneybags and corrupt officials hand over this rice to the Jangmadang and collect the enormous balance.

The humanitarian aid provided by the outside, before they are even relayed to the lowest class who should be receiving support, are flowing into the hands of moneybags and corrupt bureaucrats. If such defectors’ testimonies are true, the South Korean government’s humanitarian rice support has lost its original function.

The solution regarding this is two-fold. First is directly relaying medical products and rice to North Korea’s lowest class. Through civilian and organizational efforts, a humanitarian support team jointly based on South Korean civilians and government should be formed and they should initiate humanitarian aid activity by directly going into North Korea.

Further, a large-sized South Korean humanitarian support activity inspection team should observe the activities of the North Korean Red Cross and raise the transparency of distribution. If this is difficult, there is a need to simplify the window through the support of international society whose monitoring is much ahead of our government’s monitoring of formality.

The government should urgently restore the original capacity of humanitarian support in order to avoid falling into a policy of failure geared only towards a dictatorship regime.