Five Years Living Under Sanctions
In 2017, our family had just moved into our new apartment on the Foreign Diplomatic Compound in Munsu District Pyongyang, North Korea. For the first four years in Pyongyang, we lived in an isolated, heavily guarded compound on the west side of the city. There was no grocery store, clinic, or other English-speaking neighbors on our compound. Work and home were all that we had known for four years, apart from the occasional weekend outing.
When our request to move to the Foreign Diplomatic Compound was approved, we were ecstatic. It meant not only friends and neighbors for our children but also a new community in which to thrive. As it was, we were the first Americans in seventy years to have lived on this Diplomatic Compound!
But after many years of negotiating and waiting for this move, our stay was short-lived. Just when we were finally settling into a routine, normal life in North Korea, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was prematurely snatched away from us.
Foreign Diplomatic Compound in Pyongyang
Global tensions with North Korea escalated. Sanctions started to be enforced at unprecedented levels in 2016 and then again in 2017. By September, the U.S. State Department issued a Geographic Travel Restriction (GTR) forbidding U.S. citizens from traveling to North Korea. Consequently, our apartment was packed up, and our family said our good-byes to a land and people who had been our home for over ten years.
Sad as that was for our family, that was not the most tragic result of sanctions. The real tragedy was how the common people, especially young children and individuals with disabilities, suffered as a result of sanctions.
Working for years on the ground in North Korea was tedious and slow, but IGNIS Community was finally making headway in treatment for children with cerebral palsy and autism. A specialty hospital was being developed that included not only medical treatment and rehabilitation for children with developmental disabilities but also education for children with various special needs. It was the first treatment center of its kind within the entire country and also birthed special education for children with disabilities other than hearing and seeing impairments.
Providing Therapy and Education for Children with Special Needs in the DPRK
However, the progress of all those years came close to a complete standstill. Beginning in September 2017, all Americans, including humanitarian workers, were required to apply for Special Validation Passports in order to travel to North Korea, and global sanctions, including both UN and U.S. sanctions, restricted delivery of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian organizations subsequently had to apply for multiple licenses and exemptions from multiple departments.
Five years of global sanctions have taken their toll on everyday life in North Korea. Scalpels, needles, and basic medical equipment are in low supply. Women struggle to support their families as textile factories closed and work came to a halt. Humanitarian organizations pulled out of the country, resulting in children throughout the nation being left vulnerable.
Unfortunately, these conditions have persisted to today. Finally, on December 9, 2022, the UN Security Council passed a landmark resolution that allows a humanitarian carveout for sanctions worldwide. This is great news not only for the people of North Korea but also for people in need in other countries all throughout the world.
Unfortunately, U.S. sanctions remain in place, and obstacles still exist for humanitarian organizations to provide support for the people of North Korea. On the same day that the UN Security Council passed a humanitarian carveout, the U.S. announced new sanctions on North Korea. These new sanctions target border control authorities and are aimed at North Korea’s animation industry.