Capitalism is a hellscape. This seems pretty straight forward.

The wikipedia page :

Lim disappeared from South Korea in 2017. According to the police, her home was left virtually untouched.

In June 2017, Lim reappeared in an interview on North Korean TV. During the interview, she claimed that life in South Korea is "hell on earth," and said that she regretted her decision to defect, and later begged Kim Jong Un for forgiveness. She claimed to be living with her parents in the North Korean city of Anju. It was also her last known appearance.

This sure looks like a definitive win for NK here, absolutely no reason to consider this might be a staging. Also 8 years old news really feels like a sign that this is a widespread movement.

The man, who has worked as a day labourer in Paju and other cities, told police that he had accumulated several unpaid fines, according to South Korean newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo.

South Korea receives over 1,000 defectors from the North each year. In contrast, the number of defectors returning to North Korea totalled just 31 from 2012 to 2022, according to the South's Unification Ministry.

Her Wikipedia article says she became popular in south Korea for telling stories about her life in north Korea on social media. Unfortunately, I cannot read/speak korean. Does anyone know how she described it there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Ji-hyun