At the end of this summer, it will be four years since the State Department has placed a Geographic Travel Restriction (GTR) on North Korea. With the exception of a select number of humanitarian workers and others within the interests of the United States, all U.S. citizens have been banned from traveling to North Korea since September 1, 2017.

Prior to the travel ban, my husband and I are some of the few Americans who has lived for an extensive period in North Korea. For over thirteen years, we have been working in North Korea through our nonprofit organization, known as Ignis Community.

Since my husband is Korean-American, our humanitarian organization was initially invited through the Association for Overseas Compatriots. Americans, particularly Korean-Americans, have been traveling to North Korea since the 1980’s. According to the Korean American National Coordinating Council who processes visas to North Korea, approximately 6,000 Korean-Americans and their families have traveled to North Korea between 2000 and 2017. And since 1995, humanitarian organizations from a variety of countries have been working in both the capital city of Pyongyang and in the NE Region known as Rason. Unfortunately, when the U.S. Geographic Travel Restriction was implemented, our family and approximately 200 other U.S. citizens had to leave North Korea.

Ignis Community’s humanitarian assistance to North Korea has included food and medical donations, shoe donations to orphanages and remote childcare facilities, and medical training through our Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center. One of Ignis’ primary focuses is to help get medical treatment for children with developmental disabilities- a demographic with few resources in North Korea.

Take, for example, Blessing. Blessing came to us when we were working in the NE Region of Rason. She is just one real child out of thousands that we have had the opportunity to help in North Korea. Blessing has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, and like most disabled children in North Korea, Blessing was kept secretly at home. Even the family’s closest friends and co-workers did not know that Blessing existed. At the age of four, she could not chew her food or voluntarily move her muscles. Blessing’s grandmother kept her alive by chewing her food for her and then spooning it into her mouth and helping her swallow. It took Blessing and her family several days to travel from their home province to the capital city of Pyongyang, where Ignis is developing the Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC). As the first training hospital for pediatric rehabilitation, the center will provide medical and therapeutic services for children with cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental disabilities. Here, Blessing was able to learn how to voluntarily operate her mouth muscles, roll-over, and even sit-up for the first time.

Blessing helped catalyze treatment for thousands of children like her throughout the country. Prior to our program, no official treatment existed for children like Blessing. Now doctors are also being trained in treatment methodologies at the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital. As we are currently treating a limited number of patients in one small room of the hospital, a Rehabilitation Center is being developed that has the potential of treating 450 outpatients and 30 in-patients every day. The North Korean Ministry of Public Health is also working with us to establish Pediatric Rehabilitation Centers in all ten of the country’s pediatric provincial hospitals. Ignis has already been able to provide Pediatric Rehabilitation to three provincial hospitals in the cities of Pyeongsong, Nampo, and Wonsan.

Unfortunately, for Blessing it was not a happy ending. Due to the limited number of patients we can treat until the Rehabilitation Center is complete, Blessing returned to her home province to wait for her next round of treatment. When we visited her region to invite her back, her father met us and explained, “I’m sorry. Blessing is no longer with us. She has passed on.” Although having a developmental disability is typically not a life-threatening condition in a developed nation, in developing nations, like North Korea, where life is even difficult for able-bodied people, the fact is that children with disabilities often do not survive.

With the increase in sanctions imposed on North Korea, Ignis’ success is at risk, and children like Blessing are having a harder time getting access to the treatment they so desperately need. Although it is possible to get an exemption for humanitarian-related items, the process can be subject to burdensome delays. Even American humanitarian workers, themselves, have been at times denied Special Validation Passports to travel to and enter the DPRK.

The United Nations and the United States’ government both state that they have no intention of hurting the common people of North Korea or hindering humanitarian assistance. However, the reality of providing humanitarian aid to North Korea is quite the opposite. It takes years to navigate and request all the necessary governmental permits and licenses, which include not only Special Validation Passports and UN Exemptions but also U.S. Treasury and Commerce Licenses.  

For Ignis Community, once the appropriate licenses were obtained, it was the Special Validation Passport applications that most hindered our work. Over the past three years, Ignis Community was able to obtain these passports six times. However, two of our applications were completely denied and our most recent application took over four months to process. As a humanitarian organization working on the ground in North Korea, this significantly delays life-saving aid and treatment. The State Department states that they are working on multiple-entry Special Validation Passports, which would be an improvement, but even so the application process, itself, continues to restrict and delay humanitarian assistance.

The truth is that Ignis Community was only given access to every province in North Korea because we were literally living on the ground, working day in and day out with our North Korean counterparts. We would have never met Blessing let alone been able to develop the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center, otherwise.

Our story is not unique. Americans who have experience working and living in North Korea can testify that our presence in the country makes a tremendous difference. Individuals and groups like ours are restoring individual lives through humanitarian engagement. Not only are we able to impact the lives of common North Korea people but we are also able to contribute to paving the way towards a peaceful future. From our presence in the country, we have personally experienced how North Korean attitudes about Americans have changed from fear and hatred to openness and warmth.

Due to both sanctions and the global pandemic, North Korea is entering yet another major humanitarian crisis. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, close to 60% of North Koreans may currently be food insecure. Our most recent news from inside was from our North Korean counterpart a few weeks ago. He pleaded with us, “Words cannot express how difficult life is right now!” But the good news is that humanitarian organizations are actively wanting to engage in North Korea, and several non-profit organizations, such as Ignis Community, have more than a decade of experience working on the ground. Given the freedom to travel, humanitarian organizations, like ours, can and will save lives. It is time to end the Geographic Travel Restriction to North Korea. Please join the efforts in calling an end to the North Korea travel ban: https://koreapeacenow.org/end-the-travel-ban-to-north-korea/