Women’s History Month: Honoring the Bravery of North Korean Women
By: Jennifer Kim
Jennifer* is Liberty in North Korea’s Field Manager. Over the years, she’s carefully stewarded our secret rescue routes and helped countless North Korean refugees reach safety and freedom.
Approximately 70% of North Korean defectors are women. Throughout their journey, they face unimaginable challenges, including human trafficking, confinement, and sexual violence.
For Women’s History Month this year, we asked Jennifer to share her experiences supporting North Korean women who have made the brave decision to escape, and bring light to the stories of real people behind the numbers and statistics.
A Transformative First Mission
When I first began this line of work, I was filled with both excitement and anxiety. “Will I be able to connect well with these people?” “Will the field be too dangerous?” Even in my position as a staff member, there were times when the situations we encountered felt riskier because I was a woman.
On my first mission, the group we brought to safety were all women. From their small requests, like asking for sanitary pads, to moments where they cautiously shared their harrowing experiences of human trafficking in China, I found that we could connect on a deeper level because I was also a woman. I realized my role wasn’t just to be a staff member, but to stand by these people as they needed me, as a fellow woman. From then on, the fear I had initially felt about this work transformed into conviction.
North Korean Women At the Forefront of Resistance and Survival
After meeting many North Korean women defectors, I’ve come to learn that there are unique challenges and experiences that only they face. Women in North Korea are not as restricted to job assignments as men, so they’re the ones actively engaged in informal economic activities. They’re running their own black-market businesses and trading smuggled goods, shifting economic power from the regime into the hands of the ordinary people.
Women also make up the majority of North Korean defectors at over 70%. In freedom, they’re leading advocacy efforts and raising awareness for this issue.
I've come to think that perhaps women in North Korean society were the first and most desperate to stand up in resistance.
At the same time, the reality is that women are more vulnerable to gender violence and crime. The moment they cross the North Korean border and set foot on Chinese soil, their precarious legal status and the fact that they are women become risk factors that can lead to human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and forced prostitution. If these dangerous situations lead to pregnancy and childbirth, women often remain in China for years, even decades, weighed down by the conflicting emotions of their longing for freedom and their maternal instincts.
All of the women I met during my first rescue mission were survivors of being trafficked into forced marriages. While there are some cases where these women meet kind families and live in a relatively less dangerous environment, most have to endure difficult lives. One woman who we rescued in 2024 said that in the early stages of her life in China, she was confined and tied up in a single room by the man who bought her. Others had to do forced labor in one of China’s many factories.
Not a News Story, But a Person’s Story
About ten years ago, I watched a video of a woman my age testifying about the hardships and sexual violence she experienced during her defection from North Korea. As a South Korean, I couldn't believe that such things were happening just across the border. Shocked and ashamed of my indifference, I cried for a long time, then resolved to do something.
North Korea used to be something I only saw and heard about through a TV screen. Now those distant news stories have become the personal experiences of the North Korean mothers and friends I’ve met in the field.
At first, I simply wanted to help as best I could. But as time went on and I met more North Koreans, my perspective gradually changed. Now, I feel like I'm not so much ‘helping’ as I am meeting incredible superwomen who have overcome tremendous adversity.
My role is to constantly remind them of their resilience and potential, so they don't forget it themselves.
“This is My First Time Being Treated Like a Queen”
After a successful mission, our team ensures our newly arrived North Korean friends have a proper meal, get some rest, and receive basic necessities. On one occasion, one woman told me, “This is the first time in my life that I have been treated like a queen.”
She had just reached freedom after ten years in a forced marriage to a Chinese man. Her words resonated with me deeply. I realized once again that our work isn't simply about helping people achieve physical freedom; it's about restoring a person's forgotten dignity.
That woman has since resettled in South Korea and runs a small shop. She’s continued to stay in contact with LiNK, sharing updates about her life. One day, she shyly announced her marriage. She’s starting a new chapter with a person she chose and wanted.
Walking Together In Solidarity
Through the friendships I’ve made and stories I’ve witnessed in the field, my connection to this issue has deepened over time. These women aren’t just “nameless” North Koreans, but people like us, living their daily lives; someone’s daughter, sister, or mother. I didn’t set out to do this work for over a decade. But day by day, hearing each story, meeting each person, and holding their hands has naturally led me down this path.
Listen to their stories, and I believe that you too will encounter a heart for the North Korean people.
– Jennifer Kim, LiNK Field Manager
*Jennifer is a pseudonym used to protect our field manager’s identity and avoid compromising this work.
Help North Koreans Win Their Freedom
From inside the country to on the global stage, North Korean women are driving change on this issue. Driven by necessity, desire to care for their loved ones, and aspirations to forge their own path in this world, their pursuit of freedom is both intentional and instinctive.
Liberty in North Korea doesn't just extend a helping hand to North Korean refugees—we’re cultivating the next generation of North Korean leaders, entrepreneurs, and advocates, and doing this work alongside them.
Become a monthly donor today at $20 per month to help more North Koreans reach safety and gain full authorship of their lives in freedom.
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From North Korea to Seoul National University | Noah’s Story
The house was too small. There was nowhere to hide, and so we had to leave.
I was only 8 years old when my parents divorced. My father was a violent alcoholic, and every day he would beat my mother, sister, and me. North Korea’s laws didn’t protect us from him, so my mother tried to protect us instead. My father stabbed her in the lungs for it.
We were suffocating, but there was no one to save us. The police, the law, and the regime didn’t care. So we left.
First, from our hometown. We moved to a remote city to escape our father’s shadow, but North Korea is a patriarchal society so families like ours are looked down upon. All people saw was a divorced woman and her fatherless children. They didn’t see my mother, who came back from the brink of death to protect her children at all costs. They didn’t see my older sister, who ran her own business and worked away from home to support our family.
All we had was each other, and everything we had, we shared. I remember the snacks we used to buy, the delicious things my sister would bring home and split three ways. We endured 8 years like this, surviving hardships and prejudice with little bits of sweetness.
With no social welfare or food rations to depend on, we had no hope of escaping extreme poverty and hunger. We tried our best, but there were days when I went to school starving. One time, while the other kids were getting ready to eat lunch, I snuck out to forage in a nearby mountain. I found some unripe apricots and ate them to satisfy my hunger. After school that day, I ran home and found some rice porridge leftover in the pot. Without thinking, I ate it all, only to find out later that my mother had sold her clothes in exchange for the rice.
That was worse than the hunger–the helplessness as I watched my mother sell her beloved belongings one by one.
We were still suffocating in a country that told us to be small and silent. To live so invisibly, perhaps they hoped we’d disappear altogether. And so we did. We left North Korea, in search of somewhere with breathing room. Somewhere we wouldn’t have to run from again.
That was eight years ago. My family lives in South Korea now. Today, my mother, who fought hard to protect her two children in a place with no freedom or human rights, works as a school teacher for other refugee children. My sister has since graduated from nursing school and works as a full-time ICU nurse. They’ve never stopped being the strongest, most loving people in my life.
I’m here because they protected me. And now, I can protect them too.
I used to be a terrified, 8 year-old boy, who could only rely on his mother. Now, I’m her proud son, studying politics at Seoul National University – the most prestigious college in South Korea.
As I learn and grow, I’m able to understand my past and leverage it for a better future. The politics and systems that people live under, the environments and experiences that people carry with them – all of these things can be different. But in the end, we are all people. We set the standards for our freedom. We can be the ones who bring change.
When I think about how my family used to live and how we live now, it’s actually easier to remember the bright, happy moments in North Korea, because they were so few and far between. Now, happiness is happenstance – it’s everyday and mundane. And I realize that’s what it must mean to be free. That I know this sweetness will stay, and I can too.
Noah was part of our 2022 class of Advocacy Fellows, a program that supports and develops the next generation of North Korean leaders, storytellers, and advocates. For three months, he traveled across the United States, sharing his story at universities, Fortune 500 companies, embassies, thank-tanks, and The White House. Ultimately, Fellows are working to bring a greater focus to the North Korean people and human rights issues rather than just politics.
We’re only able to sustain these life-changing programs because of your support.
