N. Korea prevents overseas workers from bringing family members amid defections

The latest European Union statistics have proved that the rumors that North Korea has significantly reduced sending its nationals to foreign countries are true, following a series of defections by North Koreans staying overseas in recent years.

According to the recent Eurostat report on residence permits issued to non-EU citizens, the number of North Koreans who received first residence permits from 28 EU member nations, stood at 343 last year. Residence permits issued by an EU member state allow holders to stay legally in its territory for at least three months.

The 2015 figure was a nosedive from 748 North Koreans in 2008, when the EU's statistical authority began to compile such data.

Other comparable figures were 352 in 2009, 284 in 2010, 433 in 2011, 262 in 2012, 294 in 2013 and 339 in 2014, according to the report.

(123rf)

The number of North Korean citizens who received residence permits for family-related reasons was 27 last year, just 16 percent of the 167 recorded in 2008, the report said.

The North Korean government's control of overseas workers' family members is believed to be the main reason for the sharp drop, North Korea experts said.

They said that Pyongyang has banned overseas workers from bringing their family members to third nations in order to take them as hostages amid the mounting defections abroad in recent years.

A notable change is found in Britain, where Thae Yong-ho, a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, defected to South Korea with his wife and children in August due to being disillusioned with the Kim Jong-un regime and concerns about his children's future.

The number of North Koreans acquiring residence permits in Britain plunged from 294 in 2008 to 28 in 2013, 18 in 2014 and just one in 2015, the report showed.

In particular, the 2008 figure included 115 family members of dispatched officials and workers.

But the number of family members receiving British residence permits dropped to seven in 2011, four in 2012, five in 2013, one in 2014 and zero last year. (Yonhap)