Three Female Delegates from North Korea

Among the North Korean delegates visiting Seoul for the 15th South-North Ministerial Meeting are three young females. Who are they?

Kim Seong Hye is a female advisor to North Korea’s powerful party, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. She showed up at Incheon International Airport on June 21 dressed in a white suit. Kim is one of a few professional agents mainly working for issues related to South Korea. Her job is similar to that of an informant or diplomatic official, and she is usually involved in major operations regarding South Korea or in meetings.

Working for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland literally means that she is at the core of the North’s operation against the South. Considering North Korea’s discrimination against women, Kim’s case is very rare.

Kim was supposedly born in the 1960s. She represented North Korea in the working-level talks for the 6/15 Unification Festival in Pyongyang, and she also attended the Red Cross Conference between North and South Korea.

Kim Yeong Hui, working as a staff member of the North Korean delegation, introduced herself, saying that she works for the cabinet.

It is known that this mid-thirties female graduated from the engineering department of the Kim Il Sung Comprehensive University, which is an elite training center. She also attended the vice ministerial-level talks held in Gaesong last month and the meeting between South and North Korean youth at Mt. Geumgang.

The only female among the North Korea reporters, Roh Geum Soon, is a camerawoman with Choson Sinbo of the Pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. She presently lives in Pyongyang. She’s in her mid-twenties and a third generation resident of Korean-Japanese. Since graduating from college, she has worked for Choson Sinbo.

Jung-Ahn Kim credo@donga.com