The Most Dangerous Contraband in North Korea Isn’t a Weapon. It’s a Wish.
By: Jihyun Kang
Growing up in North Korea, Jihyun took inspiration from the smuggled South Korean dramas she watched to create her own unique clothing. After reaching freedom in 2010, she has continued to pursue her interests in fashion and culture as a catalyst for change. She runs several business ventures, practices fine art under the name “Da Gyeol,” and works with the Ministry of Unification as an advisor. She’s pursuing her Masters in Entrepreneurship, Dept. of Future Science & Technology Business, at Korea University.
I grew up in North Korea, and at fifteen, I encountered a Westerner for the first time at the top of Mount Paektu. He stood over 190 centimeters tall with a thick beard, wearing ripped jeans and a frayed T-shirt. In North Korea, worn-out clothing was a symbol of deprivation. Yet my father whispered, "He is wearing that for style." With that single remark, the worldview I had been taught, began, the first time, to crack. And I thought: I want to dress like that, too.
Fashion is more than clothing. It is the moment when individual desire moves faster than collective command. People follow taste before ideology, and express themselves through what they wear long before any political declaration.
A state can enforce a dress code, but it cannot manufacture desire. That is why North Korea's fear of blue jeans was not irrational—it was the regime recognizing, however dimly, that something it could not control was already growing.
Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, argued that transformation always begins at the margins—in forms so crude and insignificant that those in power dismiss them entirely. Christensen built his theory around corporations, but the logic applies to any system that holds a monopoly over its people, including a state. North Korea's regime was so focused on maintaining ideological control at the centre that it ignored what was happening at the bottom.
That bottom was the jangmadang—the spontaneous, bottom-up market ecosystem created by ordinary people to survive after the collapse of North Korea's state-led distribution system. When that system imploded during the Arduous March—a famine in the mid-1990s that killed hundreds of thousands—people built informal markets out of sheer necessity: not revolution, not ideology, but survival. Yet by 2018, a CSIS study found 436 officially recognized markets operating across the country. What began as a desperate improvisation had quietly become the infrastructure keeping North Koreans alive.
These markets did not merely sell food. They became conduits for Chinese clothing, USB drives loaded with South Korean dramas, and glimpses of a world no one had taught them existed. When a system ignores what people actually want, the market finds the gap.
The act of choosing—what to eat, what to wear, what to watch—may seem trivial. But a person who has tasted choice cannot fully return to obedience.
The jangmadang was the first place where North Koreans learned they could survive without the state. That desire did not stay underground—it surfaced. People began wearing jeans, dyeing their hair, and pulling on T-shirts printed with foreign letters. The regime could no longer ignore it. Authorities branded jeans and Western fashion as 'anti-socialist infiltrations' and deployed street patrols. Teenagers caught in these sweeps were sent to re-education camps; in severe cases, their names and home addresses were read aloud on state broadcasts as public shaming (Radio Free Asia).
In 2024, state-run Korean Central Television went so far as to blur the jeans worn by British TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh during a broadcast. The ruling party's official newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, warned that a country could 'become vulnerable and eventually collapse like a damp wall' if it failed to preserve its own way of life (Newsweek, May 2021).
Regulations cannot extinguish human desire; they only raise the price of the forbidden. This is the inflection point Christensen identified: by the time an incumbent recognizes the threat, it is already too late.
To date, more than 34,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea (South Korean Ministry of Unification, 2024). At the start of each of those journeys, there was something like my pair of jeans—not ideology, but desire; not a declaration, but a taste; not revolution, but the market.
No government in history has ever successfully suppressed the human impulse to trade, to choose, to want more. Not the Soviet Union. Not Cuba. Not Mao's China. North Korea will not be the exception.
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Jihyun is a participant of the LiNK English Language Program (LELP), which serves to not only help North Korean defectors build confidence and skills in English, but develop their capacity as advocates for this issue. To that end, we partnered with select LELP “columnists” to write and polish personal essays through multiple rounds of external feedback and revision. Our goal is to have more North Koreans share their stories directly and lead efforts to change the narrative.
We believe the North Korean people can achieve their liberty in our lifetime.
Opportunities like LELP invest in the people building that future now. Help more North Koreans find their voice, reach their goals, and lead change on this issue.
Crisis for North Korean Human Rights NGOs: Urgent Support Needed
The North Korean human rights movement is at a critical crossroads.
Unprecedented cuts to U.S. foreign aid under the Trump Administration have impacted projects around the world, including that of crucial South Korean NGOs working on the North Korea issue.
Until funding is fully resumed, these organizations face the prospect of downsizing or shutting down, threatening the entire ecosystem of groups working for the rights and freedom of North Korean people. Life-changing programs and decades of progress inside and outside North Korea are at risk of being undone.
Your immediate support is needed to help save the most critical projects of these organizations. LiNK has identified the core groups essential to preserving progress on this issue and has launched an emergency support fund—100% of donations will go directly to sustaining them through this crisis.
Historical Funding for North Korea-Focused NGOs
In the mid-1990s, reports of a devastating famine in North Korea and the first waves of refugees fleeing starvation caught the attention of South Korean activists. They travelled to the border of China to investigate and, realizing the severity of the situation, began campaigning in South Korea and internationally. For the first time, there was visibility on the humanitarian crisis and vast human rights violations happening in one of the most closed countries in the world.
In the wake of the Cold War, many politicians and governments had little interest in North Korea beyond seeing it as an emerging security problem. The widespread assumption was that the country would soon collapse, just as many other socialist countries had in the late 20th century.
To address the lack of action and attention, several groups focused on North Korean human rights emerged. Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights was founded in 1996. NKnet was founded in 1998 and launched Daily NK in 2004. NKDB was established in 2003. Liberty in North Korea was founded in 2004.
From direct support for North Korean refugees, activism expanded to documenting human rights violations, raising public awareness, pressuring governments to take action, and getting outside information to people inside North Korea through broadcasts and USB smuggling. As the movement and North Korean defector population grew, new groups led by North Koreans themselves also emerged.
All organizations started with very few resources, and funding has often been an issue for groups in South Korea. Given the politicized nature of North Korea, support for activism has frequently fluctuated. When the political atmosphere aligned with this work, more funding would be available from the South Korean government. But when politics and administrations changed, grants dried up and public support would wane. In some cases, NGOs would even be subject to politically-motivated investigations, further hindering their vital work.
In late 2024, South Korean President Yoon’s martial law declaration and the subsequent impeachment proceedings once again left North Korean human rights organizations with a government unable to help, and a political environment not conducive to gaining support.
In these difficult circumstances, many groups in South Korea have come to rely on funding from international sources. As U.S. interest in the North Korea issue had grown in D.C., grants through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the State Department (DRL) had become consistent and reliable sources of funding. Unlike those sometimes offered by the South Korean government, these grants covered not only the cost of activities, but also staff salaries, making it possible for these groups to operate sustainably.
U.S. government support had historically been immune to the kind of political winds that affected South Korean government funding. But recent US government disruption has left these NGOs on the brink.
U.S. Foreign Aid Freezes
The Trump administration started its second term with immediate cuts to U.S. foreign aid programs. State Department grants were frozen and the NED's funds were cut, suspending dozens of crucial grants to NGOs working on North Korea and leaving an uncertain picture of when or if funding might resume.
With the world’s largest economy, the U.S. was the biggest provider of foreign assistance by a significant margin. This loss of funding is unlikely to be replenished by other sources. Many European countries have also recently slashed their foreign assistance contributions to spend more on defense.
For South Korea-based NGOs, this funding disruption leaves a huge gap with very few options to fill it in South Korea or elsewhere. As a result, nearly all of these organizations are being forced to lay off staff, stop critical projects, and even consider the unthinkable: shutting down for good.
What This Means for LiNK & the Issue
LiNK is built on a funding model that is independent from government budgets, and is not directly affected by the recent aid freezes. But if the larger ecosystem of North Korean NGOs that we operate within diminishes or collapses, it will inevitably have an impact on the scope and efficacy of our work.
Even with an issue as big as North Korea, the community of organizations and individuals doing this work is relatively small. All our efforts are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. With many frontline NGOs now in danger, it jeopardizes progress on this issue as a whole.
LiNK relies on the research of these other groups to inform our programs. We join forces with them for international advocacy, share ideas, and consult each other on critical projects. With confidence in the vast array of work that these groups are doing, LiNK is able to be laser focused on a few select projects and maximize our impact.
Organizations like Human Rights Watch, UN agencies, global media outlets, and researchers also depend on these groups for their contacts, networks, research, and advocacy. Without their work and insights, globally we would be left in the dark about the current state of North Korea.
In South Korea, the individuals working on this issue are doing so with significant personal sacrifice. Given the unstable and politicized nature of the work, many activists have struggled to make a living wage, and face concern and criticism from their peers.
Funding through NED and DRL had just recently made it possible for some groups to pay staff a more sustainable salary. But even that relative stability is now gone. They have been left with no choice but to downsize and move out of offices. Staff have been laid off or put on unpaid leave. NGO leaders who have dedicated ten to twenty of their best years to this issue are now facing the prospect of leaving this field. Some feel that decades of work and effort may now abruptly end in failure.
At a time when North Korean people deserve more solidarity and support than ever, the community of activists working to mobilize and deliver that support is facing the worst crisis since the start of this movement in the 1990s.
Key NGOs in Crisis
Urgent Support is Needed
Our shared vision is bold. It not only deserves but will require a strong ecosystem of NGOs working together for the rights and freedoms of 26 million North Korean people.
You’ve stood with the North Korean people, and with us, and for that we’re deeply grateful. So we’re asking for your help. We have an opportunity to protect the progress we have made together on this issue, and to help save the most critical programs of these organizations.
Will you join us by making a donation today to ensure that this small community of dedicated organizations can continue their life-changing work?
Your donation could mean that a highly dedicated and skilled activist is not forced to look for other work. It could mean that a project inside North Korea, where the groundwork has already been laid, can be executed and finished. At this time of crisis, your donation will have an outsized impact. It is far more cost effective and efficient to preserve this work than to have to rebuild from scratch.
This campaign has concluded. Thank you for your support!
