Rights group urges S. Korea to pressure China on N. Korean defectors' residency

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (Yonhap) -- A human rights group here sent a letter to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak Tuesday, urging his government to make diplomatic efforts to persuade China to grant legal resident status to North Korean women defectors who married Chinese men.

In the letter, the Asia Pacific Human Rights Association said, "It would be
great for North Korean women, who married Chinese men, to get legal residency on
a temporary basis."

The letter noted that the provincial government of China's northeastern Liaoning
Province issued in July last year legal residency for two North Korean women
defectors who married Chinese men.

The association said that it conducted a survey in 2006 and found that at least
15,000 North Korean women married Chinese men in Jilin Province alone. Jilin
borders North Korea.

Their offspring should be considered orphans when the women are repatriated to
the North, it said.

China considers North Korean defectors to be economic migrants rather than
refugees under a bilateral agreement calling for their immediate deportation.

More than 10,000 North Korean defectors have settled in South Korea since the end
of the Korean War in 1953.

The U.S. has accepted 63 North Korean defectors since it enacted the North Korean
Human Rights Act in 2004, most of whom have applied for permanent residency.

Washington recently granted permanent residence to a North Korean defector in the
first such case since passage of the law to help improve the human rights
situation in North Korea and accommodate North Korean refugees.

hdh@yna.co.kr