North Korean defectors residing in South Korea face discrimination due to language barriers and negative perceptions about their country causing many to have psychological breakdowns, says a new survey.
The Korea Hana Foundation (KHF) in its 2022 North Korean Refugees Social Inte-gration Survey found that one in every five North Korean defectors face discrimination due to their “speech, lifestyle, and attitude,” Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC) reported on Feb. 1.
Park Joo-myung, 43, felt that apart from the support and benefits provided by South Korea to settle in, the defectors’ North Korean accent is also a factor that impacts discri-mination. “I felt a lot of alienation because of [my] North Korean accent. So, I have no choice but to react sensitively to even passing [comments],” Park said.
KHF is a non-profit public organization established by the Ministry of Unification in 2010 to help defectors settle down through its multi-faceted projects.
In the organization’s 2022 annual survey among 2,198 of the estimated 30,000 North Korean defectors in the county, 19.5% of respondents acknowledged facing discrimi-nation of some sort, CPBC reported.
In contrast, 16.1% had experienced dis-crimination while trying to settle down in South Korea in 2021.
Concerning the reasons for discrimination, “negative perception about the existence of North Koreans” among South Koreans ranked second at 44.2% after the speech, lifestyle, and attitude issues.
The assumption that North Koreans “lack the ability compared to South Koreans in terms of professional knowledge and skills” ranked third at 20.4%