Liberty In North Korea’s 2025 Annual Report
Helping North Korean People Win Their Freedom
We’re excited to share LiNK’s 2025 Annual Report—a celebration of the work we accomplished together alongside a global movement of support for the North Korean people.
2025 Impact Highlights
- 17 rescued
- 22 resettled
- 122 supported in resettlement
- 144 empowered through LiNK programs
- $4,214,232 raised
- 11,833,136 reached ONLINE
- 2,746+ reached IN-PERSON
- 7 information access projects
Read the full 2025 Annual Report here
Our Work Towards Liberty in North Korea
- Refugee Rescues & Resettlement Support: Helping North Koreans refugees reach safety and supporting them as they rebuild their lives in freedom.
- Empowering Resettled North Koreans: Investing in the capacity of North Koreans to succeed and work towards changing the future of their country.
- Increasing Information Access for North Koreans: Developing and distributing tailored technology and content to help North Koreans access more uncensored information more safely.
- Global Awareness & Advocacy: Amplifying North Korean refugee voices to reshape how the world sees this issue and mobilize a global movement of support.
Note From Our CEO
It's been 20 years since my first visit to the border of North Korea and China.
To this day, I vividly remember Stitch—a 6-year-old boy I met on that trip, just days after his parents were caught and repatriated to North Korea. I still remember the silly faces he made at us as we were leaving the shelter that night. Perhaps it was a way to hide a grief he couldn't yet understand, or maybe he was just being a little boy. Later on, I thought about his mother. I couldn't begin to imagine how she must have felt being forced back across the border to a fate unknown, wondering if she would ever see her son again. That night changed everything for me. And for the last two decades, it has never let me go.
This past year, as I reflected on stories like Stitch’s that have stayed with me over the years, I was reminded that the urgency on this issue has not diminished.
Life inside North Korea remains profoundly difficult. Last year, in a follow-up to a landmark UN human rights report on North Korea from 11 years ago, it was found that “since 2014, control by the Government over its citizens has tightened increasingly. Under laws introduced since 2015, citizens have been subjected to increased surveillance and control in all parts of life. No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world.”
The regime continues to maintain near-total control through pervasive surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, and the increased use of public executions. All of this is happening while our attention is understandably pulled toward other crises at home and abroad. But just because it isn't in our daily newsfeed doesn't mean it isn't happening in North Korea every single day.
In 2025, the North Korean human rights movement faced its greatest crisis in decades. NGOs vital to the movement and on the frontlines—rescuing refugees, sending information into the country, and documenting abuses—were forced to downsize or potentially shut down due to a sudden collapse in funding and dramatic shifts in policy. According to reports, the North Korean government was watching all of this closely. They saw the weakening of these NGOs as a strategic advantage.
And yet, in the face of these challenges, your support made it possible for us to launch an emergency campaign to raise funds for four frontline organizations fighting to survive, while continuing our own work in these areas.
Together, we brought 17 North Korean refugees to freedom, and celebrated the milestone of our 1,400th rescue. Each one required navigating a landscape that has grown more difficult every year with China’s rapid expansion of biometric security systems and AI-enabled surveillance. On the other side of that journey, 22 people were newly resettled and began rebuilding their lives, while our team continued supporting 122 individuals in their resettlement.
We invested in 144 North Korean storytellers, advocates and leaders through our programs, equipping them with scholarships, language skills, leadership and advocacy training, and a community that believes in them. Two Advocacy Fellows traveled across the country, speaking at universities and Fortune 500 companies and meeting with congressional offices on Capitol Hill. Scholarship recipients completed graduate programs and are going on to shape policy: one recently received a fully-funded PhD offer; another will begin teaching international relations in Tokyo this spring. These are not just personal victories but the emergence of leaders who are working to change the future of their country.
We also made a significant bet on something we believe could irreversibly change the course of this issue: technology designed specifically for the North Korean context. We advanced seven information access projects last year, with the support of 68 North Korean defector collaborators helping us develop and test tools that give citizens safer access to far more uncensored information than a single thumb drive could ever carry, alongside digital security tools to protect them from the regime's surveillance. These are significant advances. But they are only the beginning.
We are so grateful for the ways you have shown up and supported the North Korean people year after year. This work belongs to all of us—and none of it would be possible without you.
As a North Korean friend reminded us last year, “Freedom is not given, but it is something we can achieve.”
Thank you for your shared belief in this vision. Together, we can see it happen in our lifetime.
With unwavering hope,
Hannah Song
CEO, Liberty in North Korea
Refugee Rescues & Resettlement Support
While escape from inside North Korea remains almost impossible, there is an urgent need to help North Korean refugees hiding in China, many who have been living in uncertainty for years. Liberty in North Korea ensures a safe and dignified pathway, without cost or condition, for North Korean refugees who make the brave decision to seek freedom.
In 2025, we’re grateful to have welcomed 17 North Korean refugees and their children to freedom, and celebrated the milestone of our 1,400th rescue.
On the other side of the rescue journey, LiNK helps North Koreans rebuild their lives with a strong foundation. Based on need, our team connects them to resources and services, conducts home visits, and provides financial assistance.
- 17 rescued
- 22 newly resettled
- 122 supported
“Up until the very last moment before leaving home [in China], I was terrified and hesitant. I was afraid of being arrested and worried about my family back in China. Now that I'm in South Korea, I realize I would have regretted it if I hadn't left. Living in freedom with ID feels like a dream. I'm excited to get vocational training, find a job, and adapt to South Korea well!”
– Won-mi, rescued in February 2025
Empowering Resettled North Koreans
North Korean refugees have unlimited potential, but they do not face an even playing field after arriving in South Korea or the US. We identify current challenges faced by resettled North Koreans and invest in their success through education, skill-building, and leadership opportunities.
With the right support, North Koreans consistently prove their potential and become key players in driving change. They’re reaching their academic and career goals, sending money and information back into North Korea, and building global understanding and support for this issue. This next generation of North Korean leaders, entrepreneurs, storytellers, and advocates will be the ones to determine the future of their country; LiNK’s programs grow their capacity and partner with them as agents of change.
- 144 empowered through our programs
“LiNK’s program has helped me organize my thoughts and see my story as valuable. Seeing how others gain comfort or courage through my story, I feel that my difficult experiences have become meaningful points of connection. The storytelling and presentation training I received has allowed me to speak with responsibility rather than fear.”
– Ree Ha Kim, LESP participant
Increasing Information Access for North Koreans
North Koreans live in one of the most closed and limited information environments in the world. To protect the effectiveness of their propaganda, the regime tries to maintain a complete monopoly on information and ideas inside the country. Their narratives emphasize the outside world as being dangerous and the threat of war as imminent, justifying the dictatorship and its draconian restrictions.
Increasing the North Korean people’s access to uncensored outside information is therefore one of the most effective levers for change in the country.
Liberty in North Korea works with North Korean defectors and engineers to develop tailor-made technology and content to help people inside the country access more information more safely. Empowered with the truth, North Koreans gain resilience against the regime’s propaganda and are emboldened to scrutinize the government, imagine a different future, and build pressure for change and opening.
- 7 technology projects
- 68 North Korean defector collaborators
- 80,000+ lines of code written
“This will have a major impact on the people of North Korea… Right now, because of the new law punishing so-called ‘non-socialist behavior,’ morale is very low. But if this program spreads inside North Korea, it will help people regain confidence.”
– Anonymous North Korean user tester
*In order to protect end users, partners, and our projects, we are limited in what we can share publicly.
Global Advocacy and Awareness
For decades, North Korea has been reduced to a caricature—part threat, part joke. Dictators and geopolitics dominate headlines, making the country seem hopeless and unchanging. The global community’s inattention and inaction has only helped the regime to maintain the worst dictatorship on earth.
Liberty in North Korea partners with North Koreans to build an alternative narrative focused on their perspectives, resilience, and potential. Our objective is to reshape how the world sees and responds to North Korea, increasing pressure on governments to act and mobilizing the support that the North Korean people deserve.
Participants from LiNK’s programs have gone on to contribute to South Korea’s policy towards North Korea and engage at the highest levels of international politics, including at the United Nations Security Council and in the Oval Office.
- 11,833,136 reached online
- 2,764+ reached in-person
“As an Advocacy Fellow, I discovered new parts of myself, built confidence, and learned lessons that changed the way I see the world and my own story… With these lessons as my guide, I plan to stay dedicated to the cause of North Korean human rights and remain closely connected with the people I’ve met, building a lasting bridge of solidarity together.”
– Hannah Oh, 2025 LiNK Advocacy Fellow
Read the full 2024 Annual Report here
How A North Korean Defector Sends Money Back Home
It may seem like North and South Korea are completely cut off from each other, but even after decades of separation, channels of communication persist. Defectors who have made it to freedom are bridging the gap, connecting people inside North Korea to the world beyond. Through extensive broker networks, they send back money and information, accelerating change in the world’s most authoritarian country.
Through this process known as remittances, millions of dollars are sent into the country every year, representing huge spending power. Here’s how they do it!
Reconnecting with Family
To send money back home, North Korean refugees must first contact their families. They hire brokers to find their relatives and arrange illicit phone calls close to the border with China, where smuggled Chinese cell phones can connect to international networks. In North Korea, people are often wary of such brokers, so they may have to be convinced with codewords or childhood nicknames that only the family would know, or recognizable handwriting and photos.
To avoid being caught, contact is often made from the mountain at night, or using a series of text or voice messages sent through apps like Wechat and quickly deleted. When the call finally happens, it can be emotional for both sides.
“You hear someone say, ‘Okay you’re connected, you can speak now.’ But no one says anything to each other. You just hear a high-pitched tone, and silence. Could this be real? You’re just crying, and can’t even speak.”
– Miso, escaped North Korea in 2010
How Remittances Work
There are different ways to send money to North Korea, but a simple version involves three parties: A North Korean resettled in South Korea, a remittance broker in North Korea, and the recipient in North Korea.
- A resettled North Korean, makes a request to a remittance broker to arrange a transfer. They wire money to a Chinese account controlled by that broker.
- The remittance broker in North Korea uses a smuggled Chinese phone to confirm receipt of the funds.
- After taking a hefty commission, they give cash to the refugee’s family. The family can confirm receipt of the money by sending a photo, video, or voice message back, so the sender can be confident that they’ve not been scammed.
With this process, the remittance broker in North Korea occasionally needs to replenish their cash on hand. This could happen through the physical smuggling of cash, but oftentimes money from their Chinese bank account is used to buy goods in China that are then sold in North Korea, generating cash. In this way, physical money never actually has to cross borders.
The Power to Change Lives
North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world, whereas South Korea is one of the richest. Therefore remittances from relatives in South Korea or elsewhere can be absolutely transformative. The money is spent on almost everything, including food, clothing, shoes, medicine, housing, transport, and bribes to keep the family safe.
“I’ve sent money back to North Korea ever since I resettled in South Korea. I send an average of $1,500 a year. My parents used the money to buy a house! They’re also going to use it to help my younger brother escape and come to South Korea.”
– Jeonghyuk, resettled North Korean refugee
With new resources also comes new opportunities. North Koreans who never had the means before can now think about starting a business at the Jangmadang, or market. Since the collapse of the regime’s socialist economy in the 1990s, the markets have become essential to making a living. The flow of remittances is increasing trade, food security, marketization, and entrepreneurship, empowering ordinary North Koreans to gain autonomy.
A Ripple Effect
Along with money, North Korean refugees send back news and information from the outside world. At first, family members back home may not want to hear about life beyond the border. Decades of propaganda villainizing the outside world can be difficult to overcome, and if caught in communication with defectors, they could face serious punishment.
But as money continues to flow in, many people can’t help but be curious- what do their relatives outside do to make a living? What kind of house do they live in? Is life there like the K-dramas smuggled into North Korea? Conversely, defectors ask their family members, what they can do with the money in North Korea? This exchange of information is incredibly valuable, providing a glimpse into the most closed society on earth.
The flow of information into North Korea erodes the regime’s propaganda and changes worldviews. As the people learn more about the wealth and opportunities of the outside world, some may also risk their lives to escape. Money sent from remittances can also be used to fund this dangerous journey.
“When I first contacted my family back in North Korea after I resettled in South Korea, they didn’t believe that I was doing well here. My parents even resented me a little for leaving. But after I sent them money and told them more about my life here, their views changed. Now they realize that the regime has been lying to them and they’re not as loyal anymore. I have become a pioneer of freedom to my family back in North Korea.”
– Jo Eun, rescued by LiNK in 2017
Agents of Change
Remittances are about more than just the movement of money. Refugees who have been separated from their families aren’t able to go back home themselves, but can still care for their loved ones in some way. Every phone call into the country and every dollar sent back represents one small step towards the day when the North Korean people finally achieve their freedom.
More than 33,000 North Korean refugees have made it to freedom, and although it has become more difficult during the pandemic, surveys report that 65.7% have sent money back to North Korea. At LiNK, we’re committed to working with and building the capacity of North Korean refugees so they can succeed in their new lives and make an even bigger impact in their communities and on this issue.
