Blog 37

For this blog, I am going to write about the people in North Korea who want to leave their country. As people in America know, North Korea has socialism and because of that people in North Korea want to escape from their country. There are many reason North Koreans to escape North Korea by crossing border. Main reasons are food shortage and human right violation. First, extreme poverty within the North Korea in general, and food shortage in particular, appear to have a significant impact on movement across border into China. North Korea already began to experience food shortage since early 1990s. North Korea had received economic benefits from the communist bloc but they couldn’t receive any more after collapse of Soviet Union. Disastrous floods and famine caused death of 600,000 North Koreans. It was 5 to 10% of North Korea’s population. Second, human rights are extremely abused by North Korea government for many years. For example, the North Korea government is denying political, civil and religious liberties of North Koreans. All of them are ruled by severe law and punishment of the North Korea government. Another example is existence of the severe concentration camp like hell. Estimated 150,000 to 200,000 inmates, including political prisoners are imprisoned there. According to witness of survivors and escapees, condition of the camp is very harsh and political prisoners can’t survive. After I heard this sad news about North Korea, I hoped they can at least come to South Korea and have their life with people in South Korea who can speak the same language and live much better than the North side.