Rowcliffe paints tragic picture of North Korea
North Korean refugees are facing prejudice and culture shock when they cross the border as refugees into South Korea, Emily Rowcliffe, a former Rotary Youth Exchange participant, told Rotary Club of Farragut members.
Rowcliffe, a Webb School of Knoxville Class of 2015 graduate who is working toward degrees in history and Asian Studies at University of the South, Sewanee, shared her experiences as a 2013-2014 Rotary Youth Exchange student and a current graduate student during RCF’s meeting in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, Aug. 1.
She went to South Korea on a long-term exchange.
“I had a really wonderful year there,” she recalled. “I had two really great host families.”
Rowcliffe returned two more times, the last of which she conducted research for graduate studies with North Korean refugees. “There have been more than six decades of geographical and ideological divisions between the two Koreas,” she said. “The economic and cultural gaps have grown significantly.
“South Korea is a democracy pursuing a free-market capitalism and becoming radically more and more globalized,” Rowcliffe added. “In the past 50 years, it went from a third-world country to being one of the richest countries in the world.”
In contrast, North Korea, a Communist state, is a poor, under-developed, restricted entity sustained by extreme nationalism and totalitarianism. She said the government violates its people’s basic human rights — and 25 percent are malnourished.
“Any aid (sent) goes to North Korean military,” Rowcliffe added. “(The government) uses collective punishment, public execution and political prison camps to enforce its political control.”
While volunteering during one of her earlier visits, Rowcliffe was warned not to directly ask questions of defectors, but rather let them come to the volunteers.
Still, she learned the “people do not leave because of political dissent but for economic and educational opportunities.
“It’s really hard and expensive to leave North Korea because the refugees first have to get over the border,” Rowcliffe added. “The Chinese government doesn’t accept North Koreans as refugees. … They are arrested and sent back if they are caught.”
Refugees who are caught leaving North Korea are placed in a prison camp, where they are worked and starved to death, or their family members who are left behind are imprisoned.
In South Korea, refugees face prejudice and fear they are sleeper agents.
Rowcliffe was one of four Rotary Youth Exchange students welcomed to the meeting. Daniel Zetterberg, a Farragut High School senior who went to Germany on a 289-day, short-term exchange, recently returned with his host friend, Christian Mowery of Stuttguart, Germany. Mowery is staying with the Zetterbergs on a three-week exchange.
Morgan Larimer, a Webb School 2013 graduate and $55,000 Rotary Ambassadorial Global Scholarship recipient, is heading to Kings College in England to study the science and governance of water.
She had attended College of Charleston, where she studied biology and international studies.
