The imprisonment of Laura Ling and Euna Lee has drawn attention to a subject they were investigating when they were captured — the plight of North Korean women who flee to China. Blaine Harden of the Washington Post writes that up to 300,000 North Korean refugees currently live in China, and 80% of recent arrivals are women. Most of them leave North Korea not because of the oppressive regime, but because of hunger and poverty. In China, many wind up being sold to farmers as brides. As the wives of Chinese men, North Korean women usually have much better food and shelter than they did back home, and are protected from the Chinese police. However, since China refuses to recognize them as refugees, they have no legal status…
