Insight: north Korea's Kim jong-il trying new strategies and the defect

Hugo Boss t-shirts

Other defectors are getting that kind of phone call," said the defector, surnamed Lee, who asked that her full name not be used because she feared reprisals against her family in the North.

It is impossible to verify how many of the 25,000 North Koreans who have defected to the South have returned. One high profile case this year involved a fisherman who stole a trawler and returned to the North for the fourth time.

Experts said Kim could be trying to show his people that instead of living happily in South Korea, defectors are miserable, have menial jobs and struggle to fit in - something defectors in Seoul say is not far from the truth.

While offering an olive branch to some defectors, Kim has also made it harder for North Koreans to escape by tightening security along the country's land border with China and defectors and their families still fill the country's prison camps, experts said.

discount Tommy Hilfiger

While it's impossible to verify what happens to North Koreans who return, a diplomat in Pyongyang said a group of nine defectors who were sent home after being detained in Laos in May while trying to get to South Korea had not been harmed.

The United Nations had said it feared for the group, which included up to five minors and who like some defectors were trying to reach a South Korean embassy in Southeast Asia after having first travelled through China.

"They actually have been quite well treated since they have been back here," said the diplomat, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of working in Pyongyang. An Amnesty International official also said there had been no reports the nine had been harmed.

"When defectors come back they are not all trucked to prison. What can happen is they are put on TV ... for propaganda," said the diplomat.