Despite harsher punishments for illegal border crossings and the use of smuggled phones, a North Korean woman has received relatively light punishment for such crimes due to her affluence, highlighting the growing socioeconomic disparities beleaguering North Korean society.
“Back in July, the Ministry of State Security arrested a woman in her 40s after catching her speaking with her husband who defected to South Korea. She got out after six months by paying those in command a bribe of around 50,000 RMB,” a source in Ryanggang Province reported.
The woman, a resident of Kim Jong Suk County, had been building a business with the regular remittances her husband had sent from the South. Despite her relative affluence in the North, she was planning to join her husband in South Korea, which she revealed under duress during the Ministry of State Security investigation.
“People expected her punishment to be harsh once the defection information came to light. It was confusing when she got out after six months, but then word of the bribe started making the rounds and it all made sense,” a separate source in Ryanggang Province said.
“At public lectures given by the Ministry of State Security, they only went as far as saying that she was caught for making international calls,” he said, explaining that this was meant to deter others from doing the same.
Since mid-2018, the North Korean authorities have increased surveillance in the border region and taken pains to prevent defections and overseas phone calls via smuggled phones. Defectors in Seoul have reported increasing difficulties in communicating with relatives in North Korea and remittance brokers have seen their activities curtailed markedly as a result.
“Some of the Ministry of State Security officials were saying that she didn’t end up defecting. Six months of detainment by the Ministry of State Security is punishment enough,” an additional source in Ryanggang Province said.
“But many ordinary people are resentful of what they see as leniency only for the affluent, citing the scores of prisoners with lighter sentences than the woman in question still languishing in prison.”
As Seo Jae Pyong, secretary-general of the Association of the North Korean Defectors put it: “North Korean society has become a place with one law for the rich and another for the poor.”
