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There is a chilling scene in the 2023 documentary Beyond utopia In the video, Pastor Seungeun Kim, a South Korean missionary, receives a video call from a North Korean family who have just crossed the Yalu River into China. They ask him to use his network of intermediaries to facilitate their escape and tell him that he is their last hope.
The movieThe film, which has been nominated for an Emmy, captures the terror of North Korean refugees as they try to escape the totalitarian regime. At the center of the plot is Kim, a heroic figure who risks arrest and physical harm to help fugitives who, if caught, face torture, imprisonment and death. This year, however, allegations have emerged that shed a new and uncomfortable light on Kim and his mission.
For North Koreans fleeing across the Yalu or Tumen rivers that mark the border with China, escaping their home country is just the beginning. With a network of middlemen likely to sell them to human trafficking gangs and provide safe passage, their best chance of reaching South Korea is to travel through China, Vietnam and Laos to Thailand, always eluding the long arm of Chinese authorities.
South Korean missionaries working with and in collaboration with networks of intermediaries may have their own demands. As Kim confirmed to Seoul-based media outlet NK News, his organization asks refugees to sign a consent form pledging to study the Bible for several months in Thailand before being brought to South Korea for resettlement.
The refugees who did not complete the Bible study owe the Christian organization about $14,000 to cover the cost of their rescue. “It may seem bad to the outside world, but the reason we raise money in the church and to help North Koreans escape is because we want to talk to them.” [with them] “About Christianity,” he told NK News, adding that the mission “will only rescue those who are willing to study the Bible.”
Kim later said he would never deny assistance to a refugee because they did not sign or comply with a written agreement. The family featured in the documentary says they were not forced to sign a contract.
But a North Korean human rights advocate says the revelations have crystallized anger about both the film and the contractual relationships North Koreans are sometimes asked to enter into with their rescuers. “North Koreans, who have grown up in a system where they have no rights, are barely familiar with the concept of consent and the right to say no,” he says.
Concerns about the escapees’ ability to give informed consent extend to whether the North Korean family was able to agree to their escape being filmed, raising the question of whether making such a film is unethical.
To complicate matters, one of the film’s producers, former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry, was… accused by the FBI this month for acting as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government through his contacts with the National Intelligence Agency.
However, others argue that the problematic aspects of the film must be weighed against the considerable contribution Beyond utopia It has raised global awareness about the plight of the North Korean people.
Joanna Hosaniak of the Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul says the reason North Korean refugees are so vulnerable once they flee to China is that the Chinese and South Korean governments and the United Nations have absolved themselves of responsibility for alleviating their plight. While China rounds them up and sends them back to North Korea, she says, Seoul does little to pressure Beijing on the issue.
“Fugitives have no choice but to turn to clandestine support networks… making exploitation inevitable,” Hosaniak says.
But most disconcerting of all, the question of how to protect North Koreans fleeing their countries is becoming increasingly redundant. North Korea and China have tightened security and installed sophisticated new border control technologies. What was once a flow of refugees has slowed to a trickle. If the North Korean regime has its way, there will be no more refugees to protect.