PAJU, South Korea — A group of international women activists made a rare crossing from North Korea into South Korea on Sunday, hailing the trip as a “first step in the right direction” toward bridging divisions between the countries.
But the women — led by Gloria Steinem, the pioneering American feminist — did not walk across the demilitarized zone, as they had hoped. They went through by bus, walking only a short final stretch.
They also did not pass through the symbolic truce village of Panmunjom, where the armistice that halted the Korean War was signed. Both changes were indicative of the controversy that the event generated, amid accusations that the women were legitimizing Kim Jong Un’s regime.
As they crossed the 2½-mile-wide strip that has divided the Korean Peninsula for more than 60 years, the women said the fact that the two Koreas agreed to the crossing at all was a sign of progress.
“I firmly believe it was a small but first step in the right direction,” Leymah Gbowee, the Liberian Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
