Freedom Walk & Run 2026, Seoul
What Does Freedom Mean to You?
This fall, 200 people will gather along the Han River in Seoul to honor the 26 million people living in North Korea by answering one question: What does freedom mean to you?
Before setting out, every participant in Liberty in North Korea’s Freedom Walk & Run will write their own answers on the race bib they’ll wear for the 6 kilometer race.
The course is divided into three sections, each representing a different freedom: the freedom to leave, the freedom to lead, and the freedom to learn.
Each represents a different part of LiNK’s work and a different way North Korean people are pursuing greater freedom and choice in their own lives.
0-2km: Freedom to Leave
The first two kilometers represent the freedom to leave.
For North Koreans who decide to leave their country, reaching safety can mean a long and dangerous journey through multiple countries.
LiNK helps North Korean refugees navigate a secret route to safety. To date, over 1,400 North Korean refugees have reached freedom through LiNK’s networks. Every person who makes that journey has their own reason for leaving, their own hopes for what comes next, and their own idea of what freedom means to them.
Reaching safety opens the door to the next part of their journey.
2km-4km: Freedom to Lead
The next two kilometers represent the freedom to lead.
Starting over in a new country comes with countless possibilities, but just as many challenges. North Korean people resettling in South Korea or the US are learning a new system, while pursuing education, beginning careers, building relationships, or deciding what they want their future to look like.
LiNK’s programs support resettled North Koreans as they pursue education, language learning, and career development, providing mentorship, scholarships, and so much more.
And then comes the final stretch.
4-6km: Freedom to Learn
The last two kilometers represent the freedom to learn.
For people living inside North Korea, access to information from outside of the country is heavily restricted. Official media is centrally controlled, while foreign films, television, music, news, and other outside information are accessed illegally and often at significant personal risk.
Despite the government’s efforts to control information, curiosity about what freedom looks like proves impossible to suppress.
“No matter how much you try to control it, you can’t get rid of curiosity.”
Information gives someone a new point of reference. It introduces possibilities they had never encountered before. It gives them the chance to imagine a future beyond the North Korean regime.
North Korean people are finding ways to access outside media, through USB drives and microSD cards. LiNK’s Information Access Programs build on these existing channels by working with North Korean defectors and engineers to develop tailor-made technology and content that help people inside the country access more information more safely.
This is a growing part of our work, and one we believe has enormous potential to contribute to long-term change.
Get Involved: Support information access in North Korea
This fall, we’re giving supporters a closer look at this work through an upcoming documentary about information access in North Korea.
Make a gift of $30 or more to LiNK’s Information Access Programs by October 24 and you’ll receive an exclusive preview of the documentary this fall.
Your support helps LiNK enable more North Koreans to access more outside information more safely. This builds people’s resilience against regime disinformation, increases their aspirations for social and economic progress, and builds pressure for change and opening.
Donate today & get the documentary preview
Join us in Seoul
If you’re in Seoul, join us along the Han River on Saturday, October 24, for the Freedom Walk & Run. Participation is limited to 200 people, so reserve your spot today.
RSVP for LiNK’s Freedom Walk & Run
Squid Game and the Stories of North Korean Defectors
**Warning: Contains plot spoilers
Netflix’s Squid Game has taken the world by storm, becoming the platform’s most-watched show debut and infiltrating popular culture. The high-stakes thriller juxtaposes nostalgic kid’s games with brutal consequences, hooking viewers with a compelling cast and pointed social commentary.
One of Squid Game’s most captivating characters is Kang Sae-byeok, a tough-as-nails North Korean defector who wants nothing more than to reunite her family. While she and her little brother managed to safely reach South Korea, their father was killed during the border crossing and mother was captured.
Sae-byeok’s story reflects the real experiences of the North Korean refugees we work with who have risked everything for freedom. Many were separated from family, have little support when resettling, and face prejudice.
The Perils of Defecting
Crossing the heavily guarded border between North and South Korea is virtually impossible. Instead, refugees must escape through China and journey 3000 miles through a modern-day-underground-railroad to safety in Southeast Asia. This has only become more difficult with pandemic-related restrictions on movement and border lockdowns.
If caught fleeing North Korea or arrested in China, which doesn’t recognize defectors as refugees, North Koreans will be sent back and face harsh punishment - brutal beatings, forced labor, and even internment in a political prison camp.
This is the reality that people like Sae-byeok’s mother face.
Still, thousands of North Koreans have risked everything to seek a better life. An estimated 33,000 refugees have resettled in South Korea.
“I wasn’t sure if I would see my family again because of the possibility of getting caught while escaping to China. Before I left, I got some opium and carried it underneath the collar of my shirt so I could take it to kill myself in case I got caught.”
- Joy, escaped through LiNK’s networks in 2013
Continue reading Joy’s story to freedom here.
Difficulty Assimilating
Once they reach safety and begin their new lives, refugees face a new set of challenges. Some have described the experience as stepping out of a time machine, 50 years into the future. Amidst figuring out the everyday intricacies of modern life, many refugees are still coping with the trauma of their past.
In addition to struggling to make ends meet, Sae-byeok faces social pressure and stigma as a North Korean. She deliberately masks her North Korean accent around everyone except her brother and is subjected to remarks about being a “communist” and “spy.”
While it is not specified how her brother ended up in an orphanage, one can assume that Sae-byeok left him there in hopes that he’ll receive care and education that she cannot provide. Tragically, the difficulties of establishing a new life in South Korea separated her from her family once again.
“At first I struggled a lot. There were many times when I either didn’t understand South Koreans or they didn’t understand me due to our different accents and words...Another difficulty was loneliness…I still feel lonely from time to time. I really miss my family.”
- Hae-Sun, rescued while hiding in China in 2013
Read more from Hae-Sun’s experience starting a new life in South Korea here.
Working with Brokers
Hoping to bring her mother to South Korea, Sae-byeok was in contact with shady brokers who scammed her of her money. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to fund these risky escapes, especially directly out of North Korea, and then from China to Southeast Asia.
With the prize money from the games, Sae-byeok hoped to reunite her family and live under one roof again.
This is Not Where the Story Ends
Working with the right people who can help safely smuggle people across borders is the real deal. Liberty in North Korea helps North Korean refugees escape safely through a modern-day underground railroad, without ANY cost or condition.*LiNK’s rescue efforts begin in China
LiNK reunites families, supports their new lives in resettlement, and helps individuals, like Sae-byeok, reach their full potential in freedom.
When LiNK’s field staffer told me I was finally safe, I was overwhelmed. I had endured so much to make it this far - hard labor, imprisonment, and torture. And even though I was overjoyed to make it to freedom, I was deeply saddened that [my daughter] Hee-Mang wasn’t with me… I hold onto the dream that one day we will live together again.”
- Jo-Eun, escaped North Korea through LiNK’s network in 2018
Read the story of Jo-Eun’s journey to freedom here.
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When North Koreans successfully resettle, they become some of the most effective agents of change on the issue by sharing their stories with the world and sending money and information back to their families in North Korea.
Kang Sae-byeok’s story has come to an end, but you can do something to stand with the North Korean people today.
→ Watch undercover footage from real rescue missions.
→ Read more stories from North Korean refugees.
→ Donate to make rescue missions possible.
→ Connect with the global movement for the North Korean people by following us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
