Voluntary migration of Japanese to North Korea began in 1959, under a repatriation campaign for Zainichi Koreans sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon.
According to North Korea defector Kang Chol-Hwan, himself the son of participants in the repatriation campaign, Japanese wives of Korean men led Pyongyang's first anti-government demonstration in North Korean history, when they staged a protest appealing for permission to return home.