Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08SEOUL2305
2008-12-02 09:07:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Seoul
Cable title:  

HELP FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS: PRIVATE CHARITY

Tags:  PREF PHUM PGOV KS KN 
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VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHUL #2305/01 3370907
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 020907Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY SEOUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2488
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 5010
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW PRIORITY 9099
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 5116
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG PRIORITY 3874
RHMFISS/COMUSKOREA J5 SEOUL KOR PRIORITY
RUACAAA/COMUSKOREA INTEL SEOUL KOR PRIORITY
RHMFISS/COMUSFK SEOUL KOR PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 002305 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/02/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV KS KN
SUBJECT: HELP FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS: PRIVATE CHARITY
SUPPLEMENTING ROKG PROGRAMS

Classified By: POL M/C Joseph Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 002305

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/02/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV KS KN
SUBJECT: HELP FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS: PRIVATE CHARITY
SUPPLEMENTING ROKG PROGRAMS

Classified By: POL M/C Joseph Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b/d).


1. (SBU) Summary: PolOff visited two government supported
and two private institutions for helping student-age North
Korean defectors: Hanawon, the re-education center where all
defectors spend two months on arrival; Hangyerae School,
where 220 students live and study; the Heavenly Dream School,
which operates two campuses on a shoestring budget; and the
House of Life, which provides support for pregnant defectors.
Each institution features dedicated teachers and has had
success stories, but there is also a sense that the
increasing number of North Korean defectors (over 3,000
expected this year compared to 2,300 in 2007) is straining
the capacity to integrate the defectors into the South Korean
mainstream. End Summary.

--------------
Hanawon
--------------


2. (SBU) All defectors arriving in South Korea are required
go through a two-month re-education program at Hanawon, an
attractive facility in a rural area south of Seoul. Hanawon
is an integral part of the ROKG- designed four stages of
settlement support: 1. Request for protection to overseas
missions; 2. Joint government investigation; 3. Social
adaptation and education (in Hanawon); 4. Settlement support
in local community. After verifying bona fides during the
joint government investigation, defectors are sent to Hanawon
to learn different aspects of the South Korean society,
ranging from language to pop culture. According to Hanawon
administrator Kwon Yong-chul, the time spent in Hanawon
coincided with the time required to process defectors' Korean
national ID number -- a must-have for living in South Korea.


3. (SBU) Kim Dong-hyun, in charge of Hanawon statistics,
shared that Hanawon hosted 2,627 residents from January to
November 2008. This year, 2,060 women were sent to the main
Hanawon complex located in Ansung and 567 men were sent to a
separate location in Siyoung. The residents arrive at
two-month intervals, usually more than one hundred residents
at a time. The next batch, the "122nd class," is scheduled
to arrive on December 8. Construction of additional
dormitories and classrooms to accommodate the increasing

number of defectors is scheduled to be completed by
mid-December 2008. These additional facilities in Ansung
will allow Hanawon to host up to 600 students at a time,
doubling the current maximum capacity of 300.


4. (SBU) During a recent visit by poloff, the resident nurse
noted that almost all female defectors, making up about 75
percent of the total, arrived with health issues, ranging
from untreated sexually transmitted diseases to unwanted
pregnancy complications to dire need for dental treatment.
These could be treated within Hanawon; for even more serious
cases, she said, Hanawon residents were sent to a nearby
village hospital.

--------------
Hangyerae Middle and High School
--------------


5. (SBU) The main Hangyerae school facility was completed in
2006 and is by far the largest, government-subsidized middle
and high school for North Korean defectors. Embassy Seoul
officers visit the school each month to interact with
students. Currently about 220 students are enrolled in
Hangyorae and the age of students range from 14 to 24.
According to Principal Kwak Jong-moon, the school aimed to
"transfer" students to South Korean middle and/or high
schools, rather than to "graduate" them. Like at Heavenly
Dream School, students and faculty members live together.
Dorm rooms are on the top floor, originally built to
accommodate five or six students per room, per teacher. Vice
Principal Yun Do-hwa said that up to sixteen students now
stay in one room because of lack of space to accommodate
incoming students. Yun pointed out the prepared site for an
additional building planned for next year, but said funding
was not yet secured.


6. (C) In a separate conversation, math teacher Mr. Kim, who
fled North Korea in 1999, said the current defector route is
"heaven" compared with his experiences at that time. Kim
said that brokers were not yet prevalent in China then and

"routes" were not established. He traveled through China and
Burma, spending seven years before arriving in South Korea in
March 2006. Kim commented that students were "more relaxed
and healthier" after seven to ten days of arrival thanks to
regular meals and warm lodging. When asked about the
students' interaction with North Korean teachers compared to
South Korean teachers, Kim admitted that there is a special
connection between former North Korean residents. While
students were close to all teachers, Kim noted that students
tended to seek guidance from North Korean teachers on social
difficulties. According to Vice Principal Yun, four of 19
faculty members were from North Korea. They are the math
teacher (Kim),the science teacher (a former Kim Jong-il
university graduate),an assistant administrator and a cook.

--------------
Heavenly Dream School
--------------


7. (SBU) Formally established in 2003, the Heavenly Dream
School was created to address the educational needs of
school-aged defectors, or Saeteomin. (NOTE: South Koreans who
support defector resettlement efforts use the term
"Saeteomin," which means "new settlers" in Korean, to
describe North Korean defectors. One supporter explained
that "Saeteomin" indicated hope for the future, while the
term "defector" drew was a negative image of a citizen who
fled his home country. END NOTE.) As the first Christian
boarding school for North Korean children, Heavenly Dream
School has assisted 170 students since inception. The school
operates on two campuses, one in Seoul and another in Chunan,
about 100 km southwest of Seoul. The Chunan branch is
located inside the Chunan Theological School, and provides
room and board for about 30 students. Both branches cater to
children from grade K1 through high school, but the Seoul
branch also provides additional sessions such as university
entrance exam preparation and private tutoring for students
already enrolled in universities. Currently, approximately
30 students are housed in six boarding units in Seoul.
Students at both locations spend on average three years at
Heavenly Dream School.


8. (SBU) Reverend Yim Chung-ae, principal at the school,
explained that the biggest challenge for her institution was
"funding, funding and funding." Private donations were the
only source of income for the Heavenly Dream School, which
made it difficult for the administrators to plan and budget.
To meet the monthly expenditure of approximately USD 30,000,
Yim said she had applied for government assistance in
previous years, but the Ministry of Unification (MOU)
officials denied her request because of budget cuts. Yim
said that mega churches have invited her and the students for
an evening of testimony, which would have provided more
lucrative fund-raising opportunities for the school, but Yim
had turned down the invitations because "using" the students
by asking them to speak publicly about their most painful and
intense experiences would not have served the students well,
psychologically and emotionally. Yim expected to continue
facing financial hardships in the coming year.


9. (C) Yim had been assisting North Korean defectors since
1996, at first as a missionary in China. She was heavily
involved with North Korean defectors in China and their
escape route to third countries. Although she did not
specify names, numbers and locations of organizations
operating in China to assist North Korean defectors, Yim
confirmed that the organizations are "numerous and
effective." She shared that many defectors chose Christian
faith after arrival in South Korea because most of them
received assistance in China from these underground Christian
organizations. Yim continued that applicants who applied to
Heavenly Dream School obtained the school information only
through word of mouth, through other Christian defectors.
(NOTE: There are about ten alternative schools for North
Korean defectors in the ROK. Many operate on a much smaller
scale than government-funded Hangyerae Middle and High
School. END NOTE.)


10. (C) Yim was proud of her students' progress. Many were
enrolled in universities and some had even graduated and held
white collar jobs in Seoul. As her next goal, Yim hoped to
establish a scholarship fund for the university students who
apparently were in desperate need. Students had to skip
lunch daily because they did not have enough money for three

meals a day. In addition, some students were also at risk of
giving up their university education because they had to
finance their living costs through part-time jobs.


11. (C) Yim recalled "dragging" a young, female student out
of a hostess bar, where she began to work while enrolled at a
university. The female student explained to Yim that the
hostess job was the easiest and fastest way to earn money to
support her living costs while not sacrificing too much time,
because the rest of the time she needed to study. According
to Yim, another student who majored in cooking began a
similar part time job because she did not have enough money
to purchase ingredients to practice cooking as required.

--------------
House of Life
--------------


12. (SBU) House of Life, located in a small village near
Hanawon and Hangyerae, is a privately-funded Catholic
organization established in 1993 to assist unwed pregnant
women before and after giving birth. Sister Lucia, the chief
administrator shared that House of Life had delivered over 90
babies born to Hanawon residents since the first such
delivery in May 2005. According to Hanawon Principal Ko
Kyung-bin, there was a time when "Hanawon babies" were born
every twenty days in the House of Life. Sister Lucia
commented that the number of pregnant North Korean defectors
had dropped since the Beijing Olympic Games. She attributed
decrease in defector pregnancies to tightened Chinese border
control by both North Korean and Chinese authorities and
"day-after pills."


13. (SBU) Besides North Korean women, Vietnamese, Chinese,
and South Korean women were also residing at House of Life.
A Chinese mother-to-be was 14 years old and was quite
distressed, but her morale improved once a North Korean
defector arrived with whom she could converse in Chinese,
Sister Lucia said. Vietnamese women were migrant workers who
became pregnant after arriving in Korea. Previous residents
include young women from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam,
South and North Korea.

--------------
Comment
--------------


14. (C) Young students at Hangyerae and Heavenly Dream School
were cheerful and curious to learn more about the United
States. For these students, catching up with the South
Korean youth -- educationally, culturally and economically --
will be tough, but doable given time. The older North Korean
defectors at Hanawon and House of Life face a much bigger
challenge navigating their new lives in the South Korean
society because of a lack of education and training. Like
immigrants in other countries, most North Korean defectors
will continue to hold menial jobs, but the opportunities for
the next generation will certainly improve. Unlike other
immigrants, the North Korean defectors in South Korea have a
genuine opportunity to integrate into the mainstream, but
this will require considerable time.
STEPHENS