The Other Interview: Escape from North Korea

“Every morning, before going out to work, I would prepare a bowl of rice and put a blanket over it to keep it warm. I would ask my father to have the rice for his lunch.

“When I got home in the evening, the bowl of rice would still be there, untouched. I'd ask my father why he didn't have any of it, and he'd say, 'How can I bring myself to eat anything, when you're out shivering in the cold?'

“As my father's condition grew worse, he wasn't able to speak anymore. He could only gesture with his hands, telling me to go, to leave North Korea.

“I left him behind in that cold room. I left him a bowl of rice and a change of clothes. I left North Korea like that.”

To escape starvation, Ji-hyun and her brother left, travelling with traffickers into China.

“We'd been in China about two weeks, when the people we were staying with said to me, if I wanted to ensure my family's wellbeing, I had to marry a Chinese man. My family would live on the money they got from selling me. When I said I couldn't, they told me they would get my family deported. So, I agreed to go.

“I was eventually sold for 5000 yuan, which would be around £500 in the UK. When you get sold off, the person who bought you will say, 'I've paid for you, so now you must do whatever I tell you to do. If you disobey in the slightest, I could report you. Even if I killed you, no-one's going to say anything, and no-one will know what happened to you.'

"I discovered I was pregnant, I felt helpless and alone. The village had a guard post up on a hill. The person in charge of the guard post told me I could stay there [while pregnant] if I wanted. After suffering alone in that room for 11 hours, I gave birth to my son. Nobody came to check on us."

After being in China for 6 years, Ji-hyun was reported to the authorities and sent back to North Korea. She was forced to leave her child behind. Because she had been arrested in China, Ji-hyun was classified as an 'economic defector' and was sent to a labour camp.

“We were worked harder than animals. We had to clear the mountainside to create terraced fields. We cleared the land with our bare hands.

“In July, when we harvested potatoes, the very small ones would get eaten raw on the spot, with dirt still on them. Really, it was unspeakably bad. You could say the whole of North Korea is one big prison. The people were all hungry. There weren’t even rats, snakes or wild plants left for them to eat.”

Ji-hyun contracted tetanus in her leg. Her condition worsened until she was unable to work or even walk. The authorities discharged her from the labour camp. Now back in her hometown, Ji-hyun was sick, homeless and alone. Desperate to be reunited with her son, she convinced traffickers to take her back to China.

“I could not believe my eyes when I first saw him. His neck was covered with black dirt, his skin completely flaking. I was so shocked. I asked him what happened. When autumn came, he was told that if he wanted to eat, he had to go out and bring back grains of rice; he would have to pick them up from the ground. He told me his meals consisted of plain rice and soya sauce, nothing else.

"It wasn't very safe for us to remain in China, so I arranged for us to leave China for Mongolia. There were nine of us headed for Mongolia, and we had to cross the border on foot. Everyone made it over the fences except for me and my son. I thought I saw Chinese police cars driving up to where we were. If I got caught again, I would be sent back to North Korea. I would lose my son again.

“I could see somebody in the distance running towards us. I thought it was the Chinese police officer and that it was all over. He grabbed my son and put him on his shoulders, took my hand and we started running. He cut the wires for us and that is how we finally managed to get into Mongolia. Only after we reached Mongolia, I realised that the stranger who saved our lives was also a man who'd previously bought us food.”

Ji-hyun fell in love with the man who saved her and her son at the Mongolia border. Now the couple live in Manchester, UK, with their three children.


http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/the-other-interview-escape-from-north-korea

Amnesty International
http://www.amnestyusa.org/