Why do North Koreans defect, and what is the journey out like?
The man who helped shape Juche, North Korea's official ideology, defected to South Korea in 1997.
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People defect from North Korea for political, material, safety and personal reasons, and most go to South Korea. According to South Korean government data, 45% of cited economic reasons. The scholar Andrei Lankov has criticized the word defectors, because most who flee are not political seeking but are mainly motivated by a desire to escape poverty.
The journey runs through China. The most common strategy is to cross the border into the Chinese provinces of Jilin or Liaoning. China refuses to grant and considers them illegal economic migrants. caught in China are to North Korea, where human rights groups say they often face torture, wrongful imprisonment, sexual violence, forced labor and possible execution.
For those who get further, Thailand is generally the final destination, and the Thai government deports North Koreans to South Korea instead of back to North Korea. In South Korea, all North Koreans are citizens under South Korean law, so are granted citizenship almost immediately. They first spend about 90 days at a refugee protection centre run by the National Intelligence Service for interrogation.
Step 1: Cross into China
Jilin or Liaoning province
Step 2: Avoid repatriation
China treats them as illegal economic migrants
Step 3: Reach a third country
Thailand is generally the final destination
Step 4: South Korea
Citizenship, after about 90 days of interrogation
The numbers have changed. Defections rose steeply towards the end of the 1990s famine and peaked in 2009 at 2,914 arrivals. Numbers fell sharply after Kim Jong Un took power in 2011, trending towards fewer than a thousand a year by 2018, and they have plummeted during the 2020s. In all, 34,538 had resettled in South Korea by the end of 2025, according to the Ministry of Unification.
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Recap
Most leave for economic reasons, cross into China, risk repatriation, and are treated as citizens once they reach South Korea.
π‘ A trick to remember it Β· North, then Northeast China, then Southeast Asia, then South: a long way round to a door that opens at once.
Surprising fact Β· Arrivals in South Korea peaked at 2,914 in 2009, then dropped sharply after Kim Jong Un took power in 2011.
Connects to
- π How have North Korea's relations with South Korea, China, Russia and the US changed?
- π What are jangmadang, and how do North Koreans make a living?
- βοΈ What is Juche, and who was Kim Il Sung, North Korea's founder?
- π What is songbun, and what did the UN find about North Korea's prison camps?
- πΎ What was North Korea's 1990s famine, and how many people died?
- Refugee
- Propaganda
Sources (2)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (16 claims) cites at least one of these.