Disabled in North Korea are marginalised by the regime, ignored by the world, helped by Caritas
Seoul (AsiaNews) – Rejected and marginalised by a regime that has only recently begun to acknowledge their existence, the disabled would die amid the public’s indifference were it not for the work of Caritas, this according to defectors and aid groups who are meeting since early in the week in South Korea to discuss the health situation in the North.
Defectors now living overseas have described a North Korean society with an almost total lack of rehabilitation facilities or social services for the disabled, one that considers them a burden on socialism and a threat to the country’s existence in line with Juche, the state’s Stalinist ideology formulated by North Korea’s ‘Eternal president’ Kim Il-sung.
“In the North, disabled persons are looked down and contemptuously called ‘cripples’ or ‘freaks,’” North Korean defector Lee Aeran said, adding that despite being forced to admit their existence, the regime continues to view them as the cause of all evil.
Until a few years ago Pyongyang did not acknowledge the existence of the disabled. Without the assistance of Caritas and other aid organisations like the International Red Cross they were condemned to certain death.
Mgr Lazarus You Heung-sik, bishop of Daejon and chairman of Caritas South Korea, had previously denounced the situation. He told AsiaNews that the organisation’s first goal in North Korea was to bring “help to the weakest groups of the population, i.e. the disabled, the elderly and women.”
“Our task and mission,” he explained, “is first of all to look after them. For this reason we have convinced the regime to let us independently distribute our aid.”
Still “if a child is born with a disability to parents living in Pyongyang, the whole family is expelled from the capital city,” North Korean defector Lee Aeran said.
Jeong Taek Jeong, head of the Washington, DC chapter of the disabled aid agency World Association of Milal, has visited North Korea twice and said he was shocked to find that North Korea has no system of physical rehabilitation.
“North Korea does not have a grip on the disabled or their needs, and there are no rehabilitation clinics,” Jeong said. It “simply lacks a system of physical rehabilitation medicine. Neither does it produce disability products or aids for the disabled, such as canes for the visually impaired, wheelchairs, or any other kind of mobility aids.”
Under pressure from the international community, the North Korean government passed a law in 2003 aimed in principle at protecting disabled people, but legislation to implement that law hasn’t been passed.
The country had 11 schools for people with special needs, but they are in a pitiable state financially. Rather than provide rehabilitation therapy or treatment, their main purpose seems to be to educate those who cannot help the Socialist state.
Speaking on condition of anonymity some Caritas workers in North Korea said that “our help is fundamental. Not only do we provide food, clothing and drugs to these people, but we also lobby the government to let them leave the country for treatment.”
The greatest indictment of the situation comes from government figures. According to North Korea’s Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, about 3.4 per cent of Koreans in the North are disabled, whereas the world average is around 8 per cent. The difference is likely due to high mortality rates among the disabled.
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12/02/2016 15:14
21/01/2020 15:59
