As already reported, Kim who had gone to China to visit relatives in June, 2011, was lured by a flesh trafficker specializing in abduction of DPRK citizens and was forcibly taken to south Korea under threat.

As soon as she set her foot in the land of south Korea she realized that she was taken in and has since lived day in and day out in tears. She is anxiously looking forward to the day she will be able to go back home.

She earnestly asked the south Korean Intelligence Service to send her back, explaining she came to the south against her will but her desire has not yet come true.

Being denied even the right to get a passport, she is deprived of elementary and universally accepted right to meet her parents and family.

With the only idea of going back home, she attempted to smuggle herself into a foreign country and even forged a passport but she has grown all the more nervous, unable to find a way.

She is earnestly appealing to the reason of south Korea and the international community to help her go back home. She begs the south Korean Red Cross in tears to let her see her family members in the north during the reunion of separated families and relatives slated to take place at Panmunjom at the end of October.

"My old parents are eager to see even once the face of their daughter and my daughter is living in tears for four years, calling her mother. Authorities do not allow me to go back home so I may meet my parents and daughter. Why? Why does our nation have to live with the agony of heart-breaking forced separation? It is natural to demand going back home as a human being and it is unethical and undemocratic to check it.

Neither freedom nor material wealth are dearer to me than my own family. I want to go back home after going through legitimate procedures of the south Korean Ministry of Unification from a humanitarian stand, irrespective of differing political system and ideology in the north and the south.

If there are human rights and justice and democracy on this land, please help me go back to my family". This is part of appeal Kim sent to the public of south Korea and the international community.

The Christian Pastors' Group for Peaceful Action and other progressive organizations of south Korea and personages of various social standings are strongly demanding the authorities send her back home from a humanitarian stand, away from ideology and political ism.

But the south Korean Ministry of Unification is rejecting this and even says that "it is understood that she became the citizen of south Korea at her will and a law applied to south Korean citizens has to be applied to her, too." What a lamentable situation.

An issue of improving the north-south relations was high on the agenda at the north-south high-level urgent contact in August and a reunion of separated families and relatives is slated to take place at the end of October. It is something deplorable that another separated family is to be produced on this land against this backdrop.

It has been a common thing for relatives and friends to freely come and go from and to the north and the south on this land that has 5 000 year-long history.

It is heart-rending that Kim's family whose members had shared weal and woe for decades has lived separated for several years against its will. It will be another tragedy brought about by national division if she would live separated due to the improper attitude of the Ministry of Unification and the Intelligence Service of south Korea.

No one can vouch that such a tragedy would not repeat itself as long as the country is separated.

Overseas Koreans who reside in opposite part of the earth are visiting their native places before the Harvest Moon Day to offer ancestral rites and have a good time with their families and relatives.

But a woman who was born on this land is anguishing in agony for return home and for meeting her parents and child. But this earnest desire has not been realized.

World conscience that values justice and truth and makes efforts to alleviate the misfortune and pain of people should actively respond to her appeal.

The New York Times and other world media are carrying articles urging Kim's repatriation, asserting it is natural in the light of humane ethics and rights to let her go back to home so that she may reunite with her parents, husband and daughter.

The south Korean authorities should show sincerity by sending Kim back home from the stand of settling the issue of separated families and relatives now that the improvement of the north-south relations has become high on the agenda.

Kim should be let go back home.