So reports the Japan Times:

As a Korean living in Japan, Yoon (a pseudonym) is hardly unique. Over half a million ethnic Koreans reside here. The surprising thing about Yoon is where she came from ・North Korea.

She’s one of an estimated 1,000 North Koreans who have escaped their country and ended up living in Japan, Weekly Playboy says. Like Yoon, nearly all are female and work in the sex industry, according to the magazine’s source, a documentary filmmaker from South Korea, whose name is undisclosed.

How do they manage to flee the world’s most secretive country and end up here? Apparently through a long and complicated journey.

“Most of them first go to China and then they move on to third countries because the Chinese authorities are strict these days,” the source explains

“If they have money, they can buy a phony passport and then fly to South Korea. Those without the necessary cash go via land routes, to Southeast Asia or Mongolia. They’re all aiming to make it to South Korea in the end.”

But once in South Korea, the refugees often have a new problem to deal with ・discrimination. Southerners tend to look down on their neighbors from the North, and the labor market offers them few opportunities. If the refugees are female and in their 20s or early 30s, one of the few types of work available is in the sex or nightlife industries.

“They find a lot of discrimination at the workplace and they get paid less than their South Korean co-workers. And that’s why they look to Japan,” the filmmaker says.