Sunday, December 20, 2009

North Koreans surviving a market economy

A North Korean refugee woman, now working in a factory in Seoul, won’t give her name for fear of reprisals against her family in the North.

She defected from North Korea to earn money for her family, and while she is now financially better off in the south, she's paid a price,­ leaving behind her two sons and feeling the pressure of having to survive in a market economy.

"In North Korea, all you need to do is go to work and stand there for eight hours, but here you need to really make an effort to survive. When everyone else here takes one step forward, I feel like we need to take two and that puts a lot of pressure on me," she says.

No comments: