SEOUL - A FEMALE North Korean worker is staying in China after escaping from a Seoul-funded industrial estate in the North, an activist said on Wednesday.

The woman fled in late September from the Kaesong estate, Kim Yong-Hwa told AFP. 'The 27-year-old, who is now in China, wants to come to South Korea,' he said.

Mr Kim, who himself defected to South Korea in 1990, leads a group called the Council for Human Rights of North Korean Refugees.

The South's Unification Ministry said it could not confirm the claim by the activist, who said he maintained telephone contact with the woman.

'North Korean workers in the complex stay in dormitories under the tight control of authorities. Their movements outside the complex are also restricted and under surveillance,' Mr Kim said.

About 36,000 North Koreans work for 88 South Korean firms in the complex, earning around US$70 (S$105) a month to produce light industrial goods. Wages are paid to North Korean authorities, not directly to the workers.

The workers were carefully selected to ensure they would not be influenced by the capitalist atmosphere, Mr Kim said.

'She told me that she became fed up with the North's system while working at the complex,' Mr Kim said, adding that workers received only US$2 out of their average monthly wage.

After months of frosty ties with South Korea, on Dec 1 the North imposed strict border controls and expelled hundreds of South Koreans from Kaesong, just north of the heavily fortified border.

Conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, who took office in February, has angered the North by linking major economic aid to progress in its nuclear disarmament.

Pyongyang is also angry at propaganda leaflets floated across the border by rights groups, and at Seoul's decision to censure its human rights record. -- AFP