The Changing Face of North Korea's Refugees

Every year, hundreds of North Koreans risk their lives escaping the reclusive nation, but the profile of those braving the dangerous border crossing has changed markedly from the famine-driven refugees of the past.

Where escape was once a desperate bid for survival by people on the brink of starvation, it is now often the calculated path taken by relatively affluent North Koreans who also know far more about an outside world that was a total mystery to earlier escapees.

The shift has come quickly -- a reflection of changes that followed the great famine that killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans in the late 1990s, known as the "Arduous March".

"The typical profile of a North Korean refugee today is very different from, say, 10 years ago," said Kim Seung-Eun, a prominent South Korean missionary involved in the underground network that brings escapees to the South.

One 40-year-old refugee, who gave her name only as Choi, told Agence France Presse she fled with her mother in 2010 with the help of a sister who had already made it to Seoul. 

She explained: "I wasn't exactly starving but saw no hope for improvement in my life in the North. We went through a lot during the Arduous March and the experience opened my eyes.

"I wanted to have a better life and some hope for my future. We lived in relative comfort in the North thanks to the money my sister sent (via brokers in China) but the more you hear about South Korea through your family there, the more you'd want to get out and live just like them."

- 'Well-off and well-informed' - 

Precise statistics on the number of escapees are hard to come by, though South Korea records the annual tally that make it there.

"Now many are members of what you could call the North's middle-class -- relatively well off and relatively well informed," Kim told AFP.

This was not the case in the 2000s, when the number of annual arrivals peaked at 3,000 -- most of them motivated by hunger and grinding poverty.

North Korea is still an extremely poor country by any standards and malnutrition remains widespread, but a thriving black economy -- tolerated as a necessary evil by the regime -- has brought significant changes.

Unauthorised private markets have lessened dependence on a dysfunctional state ration system and provided a crucial income source for those on near-worthless state salaries.

The subsequent rise in living standards has coincided with a breach in the sanitised information cordon that effectively isolated North Korea from the outside world for decades.

Mobile phones, MP3 players and smuggled USB sticks with South Korean television dramas have provided more than just a glimpse of realities beyond the border.

- 'A better life' - 

"The sort of people we see defecting now actually have relatively stable lives in the North," said one Seoul official working directly with refugees.

"One of the most common reasons they cite for leaving is for the sake of their children. They want them to have a better education and a better start in life," the official said.

A significant number come from border towns.

Internal travel in North Korea remains very restricted, so those who already live near the border have a real advantage. They also tend to have contacts with people who move or trade across the border.

And more than 70 percent are women -- partly a reflection of tighter monitoring of North Korean men at their official work units.

Since North Korea's current leader Kim Jong-Un took power following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in late 2011, border security has been stepped up -- another factor behind the rise in the number of better-off refugees.

"Getting out of North Korea now costs a lot more, in bribes or payments to brokers," the Seoul official said.

The increased security and a crackdown by China on its side of the border saw the number of new arrivals almost halve to around 1,500 in 2012 and 2013.

Video footage taken with cameras supplied by Kim Seung-Eun's missionary group show the river border with China lined with surveillance cameras.

Other footage showed a house on a remote hill with a satellite dish, which Kim claimed belonged to a security unit tasked with tapping mobile phone conversations in the border area.

No matter how much money a refugee may have, escaping North Korea remains an extremely dangerous challenge.

Even if they manage to cross the border without being caught -- or shot -- capture later on will likely result in repatriation and severe punishment.

Experience helps, and one more thing the current batches of refugees have in common is that many have relatives who have already got out.

"There's a large community of North Korean refugees already here and they are a big bridge back into the North," said Seoul-based Park Sokeel, director of research at Liberty in North Korea, an international NGO that works with North Korean refugees.

Choi agreed, adding: "I was lucky to have a family member who had already settled in the South. It looks like many North Koreans who come to the South these days (have the same).

Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 27,000 North Koreans have escaped to the South.

Of those who remain, around half send money back to the North through brokers in China, according to a recent South Korean government survey.

They also use their contacts to help arrange the escape of family members still in the North.

According to Park, many recent arrivals are from the North's "economic midlevel" -- somewhere between the top 20 percent and bottom 20 percent. 

"A lot of people we speak with these days say they weren't necessarily starving or suffering severe food shortages," Park told AFP.

"It's not about survival. It's about living better."