| Kim Ryen-hui speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at its office in Seoul, Friday. Kim, who claims she was deceived into coming to South Korea, is calling to be sent back to her hometown of Pyongyang. / Korea Times photo Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Bo-eun
Kim Ryen-hui, 48, has never been more hopeful that she will finally have her wish to return "home" to North Korea granted than now, since she first set foot in South Korea in 2011.
"I am living day by day with the hope of good news," Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The "title" on her name card is "Pyongyang resident," and together with her Seoul address it also bears her home address in Pyongyang where her husband and daughter live.
"President Moon Jae-in was a human rights lawyer. I believe he is pushing for the resumption of separated family reunions to grant people their basic rights," she said. "If he considers the pain of separated families, he would not let situations like mine continue."
Last week, the South Korean government proposed military and Red Cross talks with their counterparts in the North. The Red Cross talks were aimed at holding a fresh round of reunions for separated families.
Pyongyang has kept silent. It has maintained the reunions will not take place unless Kim and 12 restaurant workers who came to the South last year are sent back.
Defectors' stories
When Kim came to the South in 2011, she had no intention of settling here. In her hometown, she worked as a seamstress.
But while visiting a cousin in China she fell ill, and a broker told her she would be able to earn her medical expenses if she worked in the South for a few months.
However, in the process of doing so, she learnt this wasn't true.
Upon arrival, the nation's intelligence agency interrogates defectors for three months with the aim of weeding out spies among them. They spend the next three months at a government-run resettlement center.
"The moment the questioning began, I pleaded, telling the authorities I was deceived into coming to the South — that I have my family waiting for me in Pyongyang," Kim said.
"But they told me I had to sign papers stating I would become a South Korean citizen if I wanted to leave the center."
While defectors are able to obtain passports six months after settling down, this did not apply to Kim, who was set aside by authorities as someone to monitor. Some ultra-conservatives suspected she might be a North Korean spy.
When leaving through legal means was no longer an option, Kim said she attempted to stow away, bought a fake passport and even pretended to be a North Korean spy, in the hopes of being repatriated.
In 2015 she was convicted of being a spy but got a suspended sentence due to a lack of evidence.
Kim currently faces questioning for allegations of violating the National Security Law, for uploading posts praising the North Korean regime on Facebook and for requesting the Vietnamese Embassy in Seoul to send her back to Pyongyang last year.
But she continues to promote her story, through press conferences with civic groups.
"Kim claims she was deceived into coming here, and that she was forced to sign government documents against her will," said Jeong Jin-woo, head of the National Council of Churches at Korea's Human Rights Center.
"Transcending political ideologies, the governments should allow Kim to return to the North from a humanitarian perspective, because it is an inherent right to freely choose one's location of residence," he said.
Kim's case has been publicized since a local daily reported on her in 2015. Foreign news outlets have picked up her story and put her in contact with her family. Up until recently, she had been thought of as the only one among around 30,000 defectors here wanting to return to North Korea.
But Kwon Cheol-nam, another defector, spoke out in a press conference last month.
Kwon, 45, came to the South in 2014, "deceived" by a broker's claims that the South Korean government would provide him with a home and a job.
In his hometown of Yonsa County in North Hamgyong Province, he was a "retailer." After defecting to the South, he worked as a laborer at greenhouse farms and construction sites.
"My life in the North was better. Here my employers treated me with contempt (like a dog) and did not give me due payments," Kwon told The Korea Times in a separate interview.
These days, Kwon is picketing in front of Cheong Wa Dae, the Ministry of Unification and the National Assembly with the hopes of being sent back. He has also submitted a petition to the U.N. Human Rights Office in Seoul.
"I spoke with my 16-year-old son on the phone, but he sounded unfamiliar because his voice had broken. My father passed away from stress after I defected. All I want is to go back home to my family," he said.
Tomas Ojea Quintana, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, met with Kwon during his visit to Seoul last week.
"We need to remember that many who come from the North to the South are leaving behind relatives and families, so I believe there are human rights implications over the situation that I as a human rights envoy need to look into," he said in a press conference.
"The Special Rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK has received a copy of the petition and is looking into the issue," the U.N. Human Rights Office in Seoul said via email, Wednesday.
Gov't stance
While the liberal Moon administration's policy toward the North is taking a turn from the hard-line stance of the previous administrations, it remains to be seen how the government will deal with this issue.
The unification ministry's stance remains unchanged amid uncertain circumstances.
"Kim's willingness to settle here was confirmed in administrative procedures, and currently there are no legal grounds to be able to send defectors back," a ministry official said Tuesday.
"There are many aspects to consider, such as the relations between the North and South, and the consequences the defectors may face when they go back. It is an issue that calls for discretion, and negotiations between the governments," he said.