STRANGERS AT HOME: NORTH KOREANS IN THE SOUTH
Recent report by the International Crisis Group:
STRANGERS AT HOME: NORTH KOREANS IN THE SOUTH
Asia Report N°208 – 14 July 2011
As the number of defectors from North Korea arriving in the South has surged in the past decade, reconfiguring integration programs for them has become crucial.
Strangers at Home: North Koreans in the South, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, draws attention to the difficulties South Korea is facing in absorbing North Korean defectors. The two sides of the Demilitarised Zone have diverged so much in economics, politics, language and social organisation that people are now strangers to each other. The possibility that it one day might have to handle a vast outflow of refugees from a collapsing North looms over the South.
“Some South Koreans believe a rapid unification could come soon, but the economic and social realities suggest such an event would be very costly”, says Crisis Group’s North East Asia Deputy Project Director, Daniel Pinkston. “The difficulties of handling just over 20,000 refugees over a few decades should be a warning to those who wish to encourage the collapse of the North rather than a more gentle integration”.
Download the full report (PDF) here or from the International Crisis Group.
