북한이탈주민정착지원 법제의 쟁점과 과제-젠더적 관점을 중심으로-

Abstract

North Korean refugees have been rapidly increasing since the 1990s, and finally exceed 30,000 in late 2016. Among them, the ratio of female refugees consistently increases each year. So, the total ratio of female refugee in South Korea is 71% at the moment. In the meantime, the objective of the support for North Korean refugees was the preparations for the unity. However, with the increasing number of the refugees, the Government tries to improve the support itself because the motivation for their escaping the North Korea, family configuration and the demographical background have been changed. Most of all, the paradigm of the support is moving to unification of the society. Protection was the original paradigm of the support and the self-reliance/self-help were the next. When each person who escaped from North Korea settles well in the South Korea, the unification of the society would be achieved and connected to the preparation of future unity. Most of the woman in North Korean refugees experienced the unique dismantling of the families when they were in North Korea and the third countries. Besides, they suffer from more hard situations in psychological, economical, and health than man even they enter South Korea, because of nurturing children, house chores, and the discrimination for the woman. However, the current law system relevant to the North Korean refugees is insufficient to care about the weakness of the female, so that female refugees are discriminated and suffers from the settlement. Therefore, in this paper the current law and policies to support the settlement of refuges are to be analyzed in terms of the gender, and more efficient ways to support them are proposed. On this wise, the intellectual standard of adult, work and life balance to reflect characteristics of the females’ livelihood, family relationship with sexual equality should be included in the law. Furthermore, the properties of female life should be reflected in the supporting policies and the necessity of evaluation for sexual influence is emphasized. The realization plans for the gender governance in strengthening the role of local government and establishing policies are also suggested.