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Last week, we shared with you the reality of life as a woman in North Korea. Daily routines rarely vary, and weeks blend into months and years. At the crack of dawn, mothers scrounge up what little resources they have - grain, herbs, cornmeal, and tofu dregs - to concoct a porridge breakfast that can barely sustain their lives and the lives of their families. After some general housekeeping and sending their husbands to work and children to school, women scramble to earn enough money to make it to the next day. Some go to the local jangmadang (illicit marketplace), where they sell raw goods and upcycled items. Meanwhile, they have to stealthily avoid the scrutiny of Party officials, lest they be forced to relinquish their earnings as bribes or provide sexual favors in exchange for officers' lenience. Another portion of women face the unavoidable prospect of labor mobilization, where they may be transported to faraway work sites to perform work mandated by the state, such as weeding, hauling sand, building factories, and erecting dirt embankments. On the weekends, North Korean women enjoy no respite, as they attend mandatory ideological lessons and self-criticism sessions.
It is no wonder, then, that North Korean women comprise the vast majority of defectors escaping the Hermit Kingdom, where the struggle for survival is not an anomaly, but an everyday monotony. This is the second installment of a three-part email series mapping the journey of North Korean women from tyranny to liberty, highlighting their impossible resilience at each perilous step in their voyage. We draw from our report, 'Daring to Even Dream of Freedom', which we published earlier this year.
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"At that point, I realized that I was trapped"...
That moment came for 18-year-old Joy when fled to China and was betrayed by the broker who planned her escape. To the corrupt trafficker, Joy's life was worth the equivalent of just $3,000, which he received by selling the young girl to a Chinese man looking for a foreign bride. Joy was confronted by a sinister dilemma: she could either accept the forced marriage thrust upon her, and all of its marital expectations; or she could refuse, which would place her at risk of being dropped off somewhere and rounded up by Chinese police for repatriation to the country she just went through hell and high water to escape. She chose the former and, as a result, gave birth to a daughter as a result of marital rape. While in China, Joy found companionship with a group of other defector women who together made preparations to reach the final destination of their trek to freedom: South Korea. Now, in between her work as a teacher of North Korean-Chinese children in South Korea, Joy travels across the United States to share her testimony.
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Joy's ordeal is reflected in the experiences of myriad other North Korean defector women. Their interviews with sociologists, researchers, and entertainers open the curtains to show us glimpses of their private lives and the reality of what it is like to be refugees in a foreign countries and outsiders in their own homes. Some women describe being verbally assaulted, dehumanized, and "used and abused" by their Chinese husbands, and forced to perform domestic and childcare duties under the watchful and often critical eyes of their in-laws. Much like Joy, these women long to flee these unwanted marriages. However, the Chinese government maintains an antagonistic approach towards North Korean defectors, denying their traumas as refugees and classifying them instead as economic migrants. Especially in border regions, where police surveil for defectors to repatriate, North Korean wives are compelled to stay in these marriages which, however abusive, are their only safeguard against deportation.
Image by 5u5 on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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"They said the only thing I had to do was sing..."
Su Jin had been misled by her trafficker who told her she could find employment at a karaoke bar; however, her expectations shattered when she realized that these establishments were more akin to meeting places for sinister dealings. In the early evening, Su Jin simply accompanied male patrons while they sang and drank; later on, however, she was compelled to sleep with them in nearby motels. The cycle was nearly impossible to escape. The employer provided Su Jin with living accommodations but confiscated just enough of her earnings to keep her in a perpetual state of debt and dependence for four excruciating years.
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In these “Red Zones”, trafficked North Korean defector women and girls are forced to sell their bodies and navigate the dangers of illicit work, which offers them no workplace protection against unruly and violent customers, and additionally exposes them to heightened scrutiny by police, who may identify them as defectors and repatriate them to the DPRK.9 Police officers themselves have engaged in malfeasant conduct against these women when they are trapped by sting operations, such as prolonged interrogation, financial extortion, humiliating strip searches, and physical violence. As such, defector women sex workers who face daily dangers at work at the hands of their customers or procurers, comprising rape, unlawful imprisonment, and beatings, “cannot” or “dare not” seek help from the police who may very well perpetrate these same violations.
Image by Chris on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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Trafficked North Korean women's only alternative to prostitution in brick-and-mortar establishments is the cybersex industry. One woman, Mi-kyung, explained that an acquaintance of her cousin instructed her to ‘choose’ between working in adult video chat rooms or at a karaoke bar. Mi-Kyung preferred the former over the latter, as she felt that exposing her body online was “a safer option” than having sex with bar patrons. In reality, whatever sense of security is enjoyed by women by not having to interact in person with customers is counteracted by the fact that they cannot escape 24/7 exploitation on the internet, which does not follow the same business hours of physical establishments and therefore precludes respite. At any hour of the day, as explained by defectors Lee Jin-hui and Kim Ye-na, women would be forced to perform sex acts and endure those imposed upon them. Despite what the word 'cybersex' exploitation might suggest, the sexual exploitation is not confined to the digital space; the World Wide Web is simply a medium through which women's physical exploitation - including rape, beatings and abuse, forced nudity, and humiliation - can be broadcast to an audience by request.
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