South Korean Police and Korean Association of Plastic Surgeons Launch Free Plastic Surgery Program to Help North Korean Defectors Adapt to Society and Acquire Better Jobs

South Korea's police and volunteers from the Korean Association of Plastic Surgeons have launched a program that will give North Korean defectors surgery and treatment for their scars to help them settle in their new communities.  

According to a report by the New York Times on Friday, most of the 28,000 North Korean defectors living in the South are having difficult to fit in society. Oftentimes, they are seen as untrained and socially unsound workers and are thus paid less compared to locals and other foreigners.

To address the issue Yongsan police station superintendent Kim Kyeong Suk thought about the idea of giving free plastic surgery to defectors who couldn't get jobs because they of physical scars. Superintendent Kim links defectors to plastic surgeons who have partnered with the initiative.

So far, a dozen doctors have met with defectors for consultations.

"Surprisingly often, you find defectors carrying big ugly scars, like crude stitches crawling like giant centipedes on their stomach, patches of hair missing from their scalp and other signs of torture, or they wear ideological slogans tattooed on their skin," Superintendent Kim said.

One of the beneficiaries of the program is man who could no longer breathe through his nose after it got damaged in a logging camp. Another is a woman who lost one of her breasts due to cancer.

With plastic surgery, defectors who are haunted by scars from their past may find it easier to adjust to a society where a competitive culture has led to a boom in plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery is even considered a common gift given to students graduating from high school and college, CBS News wrote Sept. 28.

South Korean officials also see this as a way of observing any possible social problem that may arise in the event that the two Koreas final unite. To help defectors adapt, the government provides them with free apartments and subsidies on education and job training.