Female Defectors Research Articles

Designing a community-based dance programme for North Korean female refugees in South Korea

In this paper, we propose a community-based dance programme designed for North Korean female defectors in South Korea, with the aim of promoting their physical, psychological, and interpersonal aspects. We set up four research objectives: to look into social contexts of North Korean female refugees in South Korea, to identify the women’s desire for dance experiences, to design dance classes for North Korean female refugees, and to conduct a pilot study. Based on their past and current situations and their wish to participate in dance practice, the class structure and content was developed, focusing on heightening self-awareness and stabilising mind and body; expressing their emotions and releasing psychological stresses; and enhancing their ability to interact with others. In order to assess the appropriateness and feasibility of the class structure and content, we carried out three sessions in a pilot study where twelve North Korean female refugees participated. As a result, this paper suggests the dance classes as a feasible education programme for North Korean defectors to advance their abilities to adjust to the new environment, thereby enabling them to perceive the self not as the Other in South Korean society.

Phenomenological Study on the Parenting Experience of North Korean Female Defectors with Adolescent Children

Phenomenological Study on the Parenting Experience of North Korean Female Defectors with Adolescent Children

The Consumption Life Adaptation of North Korean Female Defectors

The Consumption Life Adaptation of North Korean Female Defectors

North Korean Gender Roles and Changes in Women : Under the Military‐First Politics and the Economic crisis

This paper aims to examine North Korean gender roles and changes in women in the process of the social transition under the military-first politics and the economic crisis after the mid 1990s―focusing on gender roles by the military regime and the women's behaviours/minds as well as their economic activities as the major source of the peoples' survival basing on family and changes of the society from below. The main contents of each chapter are as follows: prior studies and survey method as a qualitative study, gender roles in the military-first era, warriors for survival doing family's support and societies' maintaining, strong viability and effect of private property, changing of the traditional gender role and consciousness, and then market economy and woman in conclusion. According to this study, women awareness of gender roles and the hierarchical order, constituted by the political authority, have begun to be reconstituted by the economic activity and change of their mind/behaviour. The change in women's ideas and behaviours often cause a crack in the hierarchical order between men and women in North Korea. Meanwhile, they are rapidly merchandising. In particular, the sex business/human trafficking of women have been on the increase. Therefore, North Korean militarist system and market economy from below provides women with both the light and the darkness in the process of the social transition under the military-first politics and the economic crisis after the mid 1990s. With strong women's social value and voice than before, on the one hand, the most serious health consequences for women that the hunger and malnutrition stemming from the food crisis and the abundant responsibility/ labour have brought on develop during pregnancies,child-deliveries, child rearing, and when in a state of deteriorating health. On the other, We have to be worthy of notice is that the rise of the individual in the change has resulted in a paradoxical transition of private life that is characterized by a surge of egoism and the rise of the uncivil individual, who emphasizes the right to pursue personal interests yet ignores her moral obligations to the public and other individuals. These results will, also, be important to study and policy on female defectors about 80% among North Korean defectors in South Korea.

Attractiveness and Cooperation in Social Exchange

We tested the hypothesis that physically more attractive men are less likely to cooperate in social exchange than less attractive men, while physical attractiveness has no effect on women's tendency toward cooperation, with four different experimental games (Prisoner's Dilemma with 99 players, Allocator Choice with 77 players, Faith with 16 players, and Trust with 21 players). Pictures of the game players were taken after they participated in one of the four games, and those pictures were presented to another set of participants (85 raters in Study 1 and 2, 36 raters in Study 3) for attractiveness ratings. Both male and female raters who were unaware of the photographed game players' actual behavior in the game judged the faces of male defectors (who defected in one of the four games) to be more attractive than those of male cooperators, but they did not give differential attractiveness ratings to female defectors and female cooperators.

The Issue of North Korean women by examining gender awareness of female defectors

The Issue of North Korean women by examining gender awareness of female defectors