Contrary to what is deliberated by specialists in Korean affairs
North Korean dissidents return from the south to their country
About 30 North Korean dissidents have returned home from South Korea since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2011.
A South Korean official speaks to reporters after Lee Dae-jung was killed.
From the source
Charles Robert Jenkins in Japan in 2004 after his release.
From the source
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Observers, analysts and politicians talk about North Koreans fleeing to live in South Korea, but they rarely talk about the return of these dissidents to the north.
Because they do not believe that anyone in their right mind will choose to return to live under this communist country that oppresses its people.
But the truth is otherwise: One in five dissidents in South Korea is considering returning to their country, according to a 2019 survey by the North Korea Human Rights Database Center, a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization.
Dissenters face a number of challenges in South Korea, including isolation, loneliness, lack of community embrace, discrimination and prejudice, as well as feeling uneducated and unintelligent due to their differences with ordinary South Koreans.
"Dissidents always fall into negative grooves, especially depression and anxiety," one analyst adds.
30 defectors return
About 30 North Korean dissidents have returned home from South Korea since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2011, according to a South Korean lawmaker who is a member of the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee.
This figure compares to 33,600 North Koreans who fled to South Korea, of whom an estimated 900 are missing, and tens of thousands of them live in China.
Those who do return are a "very small minority" compared to many of the other notable success stories of other dissidents, asserted by the Liberty Foundation official, Sokil Park, a group that helps North Koreans defect and adjust to life abroad.
"There are a lot of North Korean first-generation youths who came to South Korea, went to universities, started businesses, and entered into all kinds of professions, send money home and help others defect," he says.
Over the past 20 years, many North Koreans have fled to the south.
But many people are struggling to adjust to life in South Korea, and they must avoid the coercive measures used by Poipu (North Korea's secret police), to try to lure them back.
Details of the escape to North Korea are rarely made public, but some of these events have become legendary.
Among them was the American soldier, Charles Robert Jenkins, who in 1965 ate 10 bottles of beer before leaving his battalion headquarters in the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula to enter the northern part, a mistake that led Jenkins to live under Kim's brutal regime for four decades.
In another incident, shortly after midday on September 21, a South Korean, Lee Dae-joon, who was on a patrol fishing vessel, removed his shoes, took a swimming device and entered the fast-moving tidal waters between a remote island and the North Korean coast.
The next day, the North Korean military discovered the 47-year-old, who was interrogated, shot him, poured oil on his body, and burned him while wearing gas masks.
The South Korean government claimed that Lee was trying to defect.
Pyongyang disputes Seoul's version of events, saying its forces acted in line with the rules of engagement and measures to protect against the Coronavirus.
Li's family, who denied he was a defector, called for a UN investigation.
success story
Lee Min Young, not her real name, is a success story for defectors from North Korea.
She is a millennial, came to South Korea 10 years ago and adapted her accent and language to sound like a South Korean citizen, including the ubiquitous use of English loanwords, which are never used in North Korea.
These adjustments to her behavior helped conceal her true identity and paved the way for her to study, work, and start many small businesses.
However, aunt Lee is unlucky. Although she fled through China to South Korea, she has struggled to adjust to life in Seoul and missed her daughter, who she left behind and who has since given birth to a child.
She tells me that her aunt has secretly decided to return to North Korea, hoping to return to the life she knew before.
Instead, she has been living under the intense surveillance of Poipu, or North Korea's secret police.
It is being exploited by government agencies to warn people of dissent, and what those who leave the motherland may face.
She says that during her time in Seoul, her aunt "always cried."
The dissident and Democratic activist in Seoul, Kim Sung-min, believes that Poipu is intensifying its activities to retrieve dissidents, and its agents are exerting heavy pressure on dissidents to return, using threats and incentives often presented by family members who are still in North Korea.
He said that some of those who returned to North Korea were "tricked" into expecting a better life.
Park Sanghak, a defector turned activist, says some North Koreans have returned after facing legal problems in South Korea.
He cited an incident in July in which a defector, according to South Korean officials, crawled under barbed wire and drainage channels on Ganghwa Island, before swimming more than a kilometer to North Korea.
The man, whose arrival in a North Korean border city sparked fears of an outbreak of the Coronavirus, is reportedly facing a sexual assault investigation.
Over the past 20 years, a large number of North Koreans have fled to live in the South. But many people are struggling to adjust to life in South Korea, and they must avoid the coercive measures used by Poipu (North Korea's secret police), to try to lure them back.
Dissidents face a number of challenges in South Korea, including isolation, loneliness, lack of community embrace, discrimination and prejudice, as well as feeling uneducated and unintelligent because of their differences with ordinary South Koreans.
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