Recently, a group of North Korean citizens chose to work abroad in one of North Korea's restaurant chain, Pyongyang that runs in other Asian countries relatively close to the country. After spending a significant amount of time in their chain in South Korea, the group of twelve women and one man, decided to permanently leave their home country when felt immense pressure from the North Korean government to send back any foreign currency made from the Pyongyang restaurant.
Since North Korea has been allowing their citizens to work abroad in these profiting restaurants, more and more defections have occurred from people that actually have taken advantage of this opportunity. Being that Kim Jong-un and other past dictators have kept the small nation so isolated through authoritarian tactics, many of its citizens have yet to understand the vast differences of how oppressed their homeland is compared to others. Most live in fear instilled by their government, and in previous abroad jobs like mining, construction, etc. the workers have been fearful to speak out.
Due to their declining economic system and the severity of it compared to other countries throughout the globe, this has begun to put pressure on these abroad North Korean citizens to speak out against their government and seek refuge in other surrounding nations. Only time will tell if this continues, but I believe this does signify an important part in history, that even though the North Korean government has been successful oppressing its citizens, they are now beginning to see the cracks and flaws within their governmental system and realize changing citizenship would not be such a bad idea.
By: Katie Cotter
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/08/asia/north-korea-restaurant-workers-defect/index.html
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