Saram is an organization in the area that I trust. You can for example get in touch with Nicolai Sprekels (nicolai.sprekels@saram-nk.org), who is an expert in the area.
I’m much less up-to-date here, and I don’t know this particular organization (afaik, there are several that help escapees), but the ones I looked into back in the day weren’t able to help people escape from NK but instead helped them flee from China to South Korea. The northern border is the one that most escapees manage/d to cross, but China tries to catch them and returns them to NK if they can’t escape from China before that happens.
If escapees leave families behind, the families often claim that the person has died. So they don’t suffer consequences at first, but if the person is then returned from China, it becomes clear that they lied, and the escapee and three generations of the family are sent to concentration camps or killed. So helping them to escape from China saves the whole family from that fate, which increases the cost-effectiveness estimate.
So if this is still true and true of this organization (Nicolai may know more), this flips the sign of points 2 and (separately) changes some other points subtly, because the organization doesn’t affect who or how many people escape in the first place.
Point 4 is probably a very small effect because of how few people escape compared to the general population, and how little power they have to organize or even move around in the country. The people who escape are probably mostly from the north because few people who are not from the north can travel there. Conversely, to influence something in the country politically, you’d probably have to be in the top caste and in Pyongyang.
Point 5 is potentially important. They may execute people in particularly public, gruesome ways in response to rescue attempts to deter foreign organizations.
Also, point 7 about other generations/descendants could be very different under the scenario you outline. You wouldn’t mainly be helping descendants be born outside of NK rather than inside, you’d be helping some be born outside NK instead of not born at all (the descendants of escapees), and others be born in NK instead of not born at all (the other descendants of the families left behind by escapees).
I’m generally delighted that you’re looking into this! I’ve previously mentioned this as an intervention that is potentially on par with GiveWell’s top charities, so if you’ve discovered it independently, it makes me even more optimistic about it.
I’m much less up-to-date here, and I don’t know this particular organization (afaik, there are several that help escapees), but the ones I looked into back in the day weren’t able to help people escape from NK but instead helped them flee from China to South Korea. The northern border is the one that most escapees manage/d to cross, but China tries to catch them and returns them to NK if they can’t escape from China before that happens.
Ok, if this is the case, then the number of people escaping from NK in the first place could be a limiting factor we’d run into quickly, if we don’t expect to influence this number much, but if we are increasing this number (people finding out about successful escapes), this may increase the risk of punishments (maybe not overall, though).
If escapees leave families behind, the families often claim that the person has died.
They might stop buying this if too many people are escaping and there’s no evidence of the person having died. I’d guess we shouldn’t expect due process from North Korea.
Yeah, I’m thinking about this at the current margin where deaths are probably some three orders of magnitude more than escapes, but those are problems that we’d run into if we were to scale this intervention a lot.
Saram is an organization in the area that I trust. You can for example get in touch with Nicolai Sprekels (nicolai.sprekels@saram-nk.org), who is an expert in the area.
I’m much less up-to-date here, and I don’t know this particular organization (afaik, there are several that help escapees), but the ones I looked into back in the day weren’t able to help people escape from NK but instead helped them flee from China to South Korea. The northern border is the one that most escapees manage/d to cross, but China tries to catch them and returns them to NK if they can’t escape from China before that happens.
If escapees leave families behind, the families often claim that the person has died. So they don’t suffer consequences at first, but if the person is then returned from China, it becomes clear that they lied, and the escapee and three generations of the family are sent to concentration camps or killed. So helping them to escape from China saves the whole family from that fate, which increases the cost-effectiveness estimate.
So if this is still true and true of this organization (Nicolai may know more), this flips the sign of points 2 and (separately) changes some other points subtly, because the organization doesn’t affect who or how many people escape in the first place.
Point 4 is probably a very small effect because of how few people escape compared to the general population, and how little power they have to organize or even move around in the country. The people who escape are probably mostly from the north because few people who are not from the north can travel there. Conversely, to influence something in the country politically, you’d probably have to be in the top caste and in Pyongyang.
Point 5 is potentially important. They may execute people in particularly public, gruesome ways in response to rescue attempts to deter foreign organizations.
Also, point 7 about other generations/descendants could be very different under the scenario you outline. You wouldn’t mainly be helping descendants be born outside of NK rather than inside, you’d be helping some be born outside NK instead of not born at all (the descendants of escapees), and others be born in NK instead of not born at all (the other descendants of the families left behind by escapees).
Yes, good point.
I’m generally delighted that you’re looking into this! I’ve previously mentioned this as an intervention that is potentially on par with GiveWell’s top charities, so if you’ve discovered it independently, it makes me even more optimistic about it.
Ok, if this is the case, then the number of people escaping from NK in the first place could be a limiting factor we’d run into quickly, if we don’t expect to influence this number much, but if we are increasing this number (people finding out about successful escapes), this may increase the risk of punishments (maybe not overall, though).
They might stop buying this if too many people are escaping and there’s no evidence of the person having died. I’d guess we shouldn’t expect due process from North Korea.
Yeah, I’m thinking about this at the current margin where deaths are probably some three orders of magnitude more than escapes, but those are problems that we’d run into if we were to scale this intervention a lot.