2009 Projects
As we mentioned in our previous newsletter, we would like to introduce our current and major projects for 2009. If you have an interest in the projects, would like to recommend other related organizations, foundations, schools, or governments as either supporters or collaborators, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to your comments and suggestions.
1. Yale Law School Proposal:
(Spring Semester 2009)
Lowenstein Legal Clinic.
AIMS submitted the proposal to The Lowenstein Legal Clinic in early January, and we are
currently awaiting a response, which should come after the proposal has been presented to the students.
Our Proposal Outline:
Challenges
1. Analyze the NKHRA, including the obligations set forth for the U.S. government and whether they are being carried out by the respective agencies.
2. Interview North Korean refugees who want to resettle or have already resettled in the U.S.
A. Investigate the claims made by North Korean refugees about the destruction of UNHCR documentation by South Korean government officials.
B. Investigate claims of threats and discrimination made by North Korean refugees when speaking about their lives in South Korea.
3. Using the data collected above to:
A. Make a claim against the South Korean government for violations regarding the destruction of official UNHCR documentation
B. File an amicus brief on behalf of the current undocumented North Korean refugees in the U.S. whose petitions for asylum are pending.
4. Request that the courts hear groups of petitions for asylum from North Korean refugees instead of on an individual basis as is currently being done.
Expectation / Outcome
1. To force the U.S. and its agencies to act in full accordance with any requirements of the NKHRA that are currently going unmet.
2. To provide assistance to North Korean refugees whose rights may have been violated by the South Korean government.
3. To assist North Korean refugees currently awaiting the outcome of their petitions for asylum through the filing of an amicus brief.
4. To have research ready should the current appeals at the administrative judge level fail and such cases must be appealed to federal courts.
1. Participation in HPAIR as a presenter
Social work session: Human trafficking
The experience of trafficking is an undeniable aspect of the social adaptation of North Korean defectors. AIMS will be at HPAIR to share this information and to network with those who are interested in international human rights and in helping to resolve the trafficking issues of North Korean defectors
2. Language program and Job Training.
We are currently developing a proposal to submit to centers for Korean studies throughout the Los Angeles area. As mentioned in our previous issues, during our interviews with North Korean defectors in the United States, we were overwhelmingly told that a program that offered minimum English tutoring was desperately needed. Although many organizations have tried to provide this kind of program for North Korean defectors, the instructors’ lack of Korean language skills only seemed to confuse the North Korean defectors, while the hectic work schedules many North Korean defectors have also did not allow them to attend classes on a consistent basis.
Therefore, we believe that collaborating with a major university located in the Los Angeles area that has a large Korean student population will help us to overcome these obstacles. If possible, we would also like to find ways to offer students credit for their tutoring time.
3. Mental Treatment
Sejin, Timothy, Ji-ho and Ha-young are currently preparing a proposal geared towards related U.S government branches, foundations and organizations. Most North Korean refugees suffer from severe traumatic disorders resulting from both their lives in North Korea as well as from their journey to a safe country. Due to the severity of this experience, many North Korean defectors seek treatment for these problems. However, primarily due to a lack of specialized manpower (ie, in depth knowledge of North Koreans, specialties in sociology, law, public health, and psychology, fluency in English and Korean, along with a strong rapport with North Korean defectors), no such project has been undertaken. The fact that North Korean defectors and refugees live in locations throughout the United States has also presented a major obstacle to such a project. Members of our team and experts in these fields have met in Korea to begin brainstorming and bench-marking this project, using a variety of models including previous research and work at Hanawon. The project will consist of three separate teams: specialists, coordinators, and generalists. It will begin with as many in depth-interviews with North Korean defectors in the United States as possible, while at the same time cross-referencing the results of the interviews with those conducted in other countries. Using this information, we will begin to build a stronger network of social welfare organizations to which we will provide training on distinguishing the psychological characteristics of North Korean defectors who suffer from trauma through a systematically designed program developed to be personalized to match North Korean defectors in various communities. Throughout this project, we expect to use the sum of our information to create a very useful database from which we will create a manual that will include information on the hardships of North Korean defectors, human rights issues, and other information to assist other organizations in developing additional necessary programs.
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This is one of several illuistrations based on firsthand accounts of the horrors incurred by North Korea on its own citizens. Click the picture to see the rest of the drawings. Courtesy of Peter Jung and Sang Hun Kim
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North Korean Human Rights Abuses - Illuistrated
This is one of several illuistrations based on firsthand accounts of the horrors incurred by North Korea on its own citizens. Click the picture to see the rest of the drawings. Courtesy of Peter Jung and Sang Hun Kim
About this blog
This AIMS Korea Blog exists for several reasons. It exists to begin a discussion regarding the often overlooked plight of North Korean Refugees, to bring their situation to the world stage. It will be a place to read about the individual stories of refugees, many of whom AIMS has interviewed, and learn from firsthand sources what life is like in North Korea, and what struggles many undergo to leave it. Finally, this blog will offer more than the chance to absorb information, it will allow for questions to be asked and discussions to be started, it will allow for the kind of interaction that is critical to progress being made.
So check back often for stories, interviews, pictures, and updates. There is plenty to come!
So check back often for stories, interviews, pictures, and updates. There is plenty to come!
something something
ou know, I lived in a despotic, completely centralized country where if the center said, ‘ah,” we all had to repeat “ah”; to have said “uh” or “oh” would have been offensive. The centralized government taught us that the nation’s foundation lay in laws like “the minority for the majority, and the majority for the minority,” “one for all, and all for one,” “an individual for the party, and the party for an individual.” Other propaganda statements such as “not living for today, but living for tomorrow,” “progress in spite of the hardship,” and “march through the famine” created an even more controlled North Korean society.
The North Korean regime controls civilians by murdering them and encouraging them to rat out others. A citizen may be considered a loyal figure at the beginning of the day and a traitor at the end of it. For instance, say there are four people: A, B, C, and D sitting together, and one complains, “There is nothing to sell in the shop. How am I going to make a living?” Let’s say that this man is “A”. Now “B” reports to the government that the once-loyal “A” has now criticized the government’s economic system. This is how it begins, how someone is accused. Then, “C” and “D”, who were sitting in on the conversation, become accomplices of “A,” and “A” becomes a traitor to the government. There are so many political prisoners because of situations like this one. Only the people who report other people to the government can survive.
In North Korea, I was taught that I had grown up in the “Sun-yang” palace under the leadership of the two bright suns of the 21st century. I learned that there were no happier people in the world than North Koreans. I believed this. Even when North Koreans are hungry, they work for the party and the Great Leader, for North Koreans believe that the leader’s care is what provides them with clothes to wear and food to eat. But here in South Korea, if you watch those historical dramas such as “The Tear of the Dragon,” and “Queen Sunduk,” you see that people shouldn’t know about the private life of the king. It’s like that with Kim Jung-il. Here, there are department stores like Hyundai, Lotte, Shin-Se-gae, Ae-gyung, and many others where everyone from civilians to the president goes to shop. In North Korea, the rift between the lifestyle of the elites and the people is unspeakably large. It is like heaven and earth, and no one really knows how lavishly the officials live. North Korean defectors only learn more about North Korea after arriving in South Korea. In North Korea, people live under the belief that what the party decides we must follow.
When I was in North Korea, the situation in North Korea was so dire that it could and should have caused a rebellion, but the regime had so thoroughly brainwashed the people that they were living in agony through it all without a word. People were breathing but not living. They were so brainwashed that, even though the country didn’t provide them with rations, allowed 3 million people to starve to death, had the most malnourished children in the world, and received international scorn for violating human rights, nobody could say anything. North Koreans just died quietly.
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