Wonhee Lee, February 18, 2008, translation by Greg Scarlatoiu:
The North Korean authorities are undergoing a change in perception regarding the people living with disabilities. North Korea is now no longer reluctant to request assistance for the disabled.
For a long time now, it has been known that it’s impossible to see or meet disabled people on the streets of Pyongyang. Los Angeles-based Shalom Disability Ministries has been distributing wheelchairs to the disabled of North Korea. For a while now, this organization has been telling the world that North Korea is embarrassed to even admit the existence of its disabled, but Shalom representatives have recently told RFA that views on the disabled appear to be changing in the reclusive communist state. Continue reading »
six months after getting vaccinated for 
Confinement and Discrimination: Disabled in North Korea
Based on accounts by North Korean defectors, it appears that the disabled are one of the most vulnerable categories within a general population that has long been suffering from severe food shortages and the de facto collapse of the health system. According to the defectors, the disabled are held in contempt, marginalized, and often confined to their homes for long periods of time, since no appropriate disability welfare or rehabilitation systems are in place. Derogatory terms are habitually used in relation to the disabled, and if disabled babies are born into families that reside in Pyongyang, these families are often forcibly relocated to the rural areas. Continue reading »