Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Earlier this week, author, TED speaker and North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee (Twitter: @HyeonseoLeeNK) published a New York Times op-ed on China's immigration and refugee policies and practices with respect to North Korean refugees. Lee (who now lives in South Korea) writes:

"This past year much has been written about the people fleeing the Middle East for Europe. The world should also pay attention to the North Korean refugee crisis, and to the desperation that drives it...As many as 200,000 defectors are living secretly in China. The Chinese government considers them illegal immigrants — even though they are refugees. As a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees, China is obligated to not repatriate them, yet it cooperates with North Korea to find defectors and even pays its citizens for turning them in."

The column is both a reminder of the brutal regime governing North Korea and also of the ongoing interdependence between the vulnerability created by unlawful immigration status, immigration policy/practice and human rights.

-JKoh

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2016/05/life-as-a-north-korean-refugee-hyeonseoleenk-on-chinas-treatment-of-refugees.html