74 Kim Jinsun (2009, 1-4) started trading in 1994 for her family’s survival because “We received no distribution, no wages, both my husband and me were going to work. We both were involved in employment, but when they wouldn’t give us any wages, when they wouldn’t give us any distributions, how were we supposed to live? You can’t.” Generally, North Korean refugee women have been involved in trading before migrating to China because “Women can quit their job but men cannot do so. Because he is the head of household and because that person has to make a living, he cannot do so, and he has to go to work even if they don’t give you a ration and don’t give you your wages.” As Yi Myeongsun (2009, 1-3) also states, “Men must go to work. If they don’t go, they are arrested. Because they put them in these forced labour camps”, men, differently from women, cannot avoid their workplace even if they receive neither distributions nor wages. Because men are regarded as both the heads of household and citizens they are rounded up as political criminals when they desert their work. In this sense, if men were ‘first-class people’, women were in a position of ‘second-class people’. Such a structure operated as a force that pushed women out; and this mechanism developed into a practice of women crossing state borders. In general, North Korean refugee women who now reside in South Korea have come via China and other third countries. They have lived in China for 1 year in cases of short sojourn and for up to 10 years in cases of long settlement. In the Hanawon survey carried out in August 2009, North Korean women who had resided in China or third countries for more than 1 year made up 79% of the total sample. Among the survey respondents 51 (21%) North Korean refugee women had stayed in China for less than a year, 73 (29%) women between 1-4 years, 82 (33%) women between 5-9 years, and 41 (17%) women for more than 10 years. <Illustration 5-1> Length of North Korean refugee women’s stay in China