Matchmaker seeks spouses for fellow NKorea defectors

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2007

SEOUL (AFP) — North Koreans who have braved hardships and risked jail or torture to flee their homeland still face a daunting array of challenges when they finally arrive in South Korea.

For women, says Choi Young-Hee who came south in 2002, the biggest problem in adapting to their new life is marriage.

Working from her own bitter experience, she set up the North and South Marriage Information Company to help women find suitable spouses and protect them from suitors only interested in their resettlement allowances.

The initiative is timely. Of the 10,000 or so defectors who came South since the 1950-53 Korean War, thousands have arrived in the past few years. Many face problems adapting to a bewildering new country and end up in poverty, with some...