Looking for a Safe Haven : An Ethnographic Research on the Transnational Networking strategies of North Korean Migrant(Defector) Families in South Korea and Japan

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Recently, we revisited North Korean defectors living in Japan and Korea. Most of these interviewees are North Koreans who are living in the Reeducation-institution (Hana-won) far North Korean or those of 150 who are living in Japan. Due to the fact that most of them want to keep their origin secret, we could not reveal their identity in this report protect our informant's privacy and safety.From these interviews, we found that North Korean defectors were not satisfied with where they live looking far safer place to live. More than half of them said to us that they wanted to migrate to the countries other than Japan or South Korea. One of the reasons was that it was difficult for them to live as North Korean defectors in the two countries, especially those who are living in Japan.Unite States has become the most preferred third country. It is mostly due to the fact that the United states started accepting North Korean defectors as asylum seeker. On Sept. 2004, The Law of Human Rights fo … More r North Korea was enacted, this legislation enabled many North Korean defectors in South Korea and Japan to seek "American Dream". It is, therefore, our future important subject to clarify how the North Korean people, who had an opportunity far defecting and going for study to USA, create the network and how they change the relation with their own families, who are living in Korea, Japan, or China.Surprisingly, half of interviewees living in Japan said to us that, if not punished, they want to go back to North Korea. They said it was too difficult far them to settle down in Japan. This is why they are engaged in endless networking activities with their connections in China or other third countries looking for a "Safe Haven".It has been our pleasure to share these findings with you. We will make every effort to exchange the research findings with the North Korean Defectors Research Association. Through this we hope to share these findings with other researchers and practitioners who wants to understand North Korean defector families living in Japan. I wish this interdisciplinary effort will be very instructive for inquiring into our next theme : "How to support the North Korean defectors to their self-support". Less