Returnee seeks Japan's help to protect children in N. Korea

0 Comments | Asian Political News, July 28, 2003

TOKYO, July 23 Kyodo

A Japanese woman who accompanied her Korean husband to North Korea in 1959 and returned to Japan in January called on the Japanese government Tuesday to ensure the safety of her two children and those of other Japanese women like herself living in North Korea.

Fudeko Hirashima, 64, has become the first Japanese wife of a North Korean to return to Japan after fleeing North Korea and reveal her name. She visited the Foreign Ministry and the prime minister's office to make her appeal.

Referring to the roughly 1,800 Japanese wives of Koreans who went to the North, Hirashima told a press conference, ''I hope they will be able to be reunited with their families (in Japan) as soon as possible.''

Hirashima said she alone made her decision to escape from North Korea. ''I did not even consult my children. I am so worried I cannot sleep at night,'' she said tearfully.

She said she has written many letters to her family in North Korea, but that she has not received any replies.

Katsuei Hirasawa, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives who also attended the press meeting, said, ''Ms. Hirashima has been living quietly here since January, but she decided to announce her real name and ask the government for help in an effort to ensure the safety of her children.''

Hirashima married a Korean resident of Japan in 1958 and went by ship to North Korea in December the following year. She was among the roughly 6,840 Japanese -- the wives, husbands and children of Koreans -- who went to the country.

Under a program devised by late North Korean President Kim Il Sung, and endorsed by the Japanese government, 93,340 Korean residents of Japan, including married couples and children, went to North Korea between 1959 and 1984.