North Korean Women's Narratives of Migration: Challenging Hegemonic Discourses of Trafficking and Geopolitics

This article recovers the subaltern stories of North Korean migrant women living and working underground in China. This work begins to unravel relations of power operating through hegemonic discourses of human trafficking. International human rights agencies and the U.S. government often make totalizing statements that categorize North Korean migrant women in China without authorization as trafficked: powerless victims without agency who need to be rescued with the assistance of international society. Based on in-depth interviews with North Korean migrants and extensive document analysis, however, I argue that the strategic spotlight on North Korean human trafficking has actually worsened the condition of North Koreans in China by leading to more crackdowns by both North Korean and Chinese authorities who consider those international efforts as political intervention and threats to their national security. In addition, current discourses on North Korean human trafficking are grounded in Western liberal discourses of the universality of human rights. As a result, trafficking discourses and policies ignore the complicated nature of global political and economic structures that shape women's basic economic security and their decision to migrate. Through critical examination of contemporary geopolitics, this article shows the urgency of democratic and decolonized ways of understanding the trafficking of North Korean women and of offering them support.