Yoon Ha's Story: Part 2 - Life in China
This is the second part of a three-part story. Read part one about the hardships Yoon Ha experienced growing up in North Korea that led her to escape. Part three follows this part with her experience resettling in South Korea.
The couple who helped me escape into China brought me to a house that same night after we crossed the river. There they told me about my options. They said I could work in a restaurant somewhere in China. However, there would be a high risk that I would be caught by the Chinese police and get sent back to North Korea. I already knew that if you get sent back to North Korea from China, you could be severely punished by the North Korean regime.
They said there was another way, which would be safer; I could "marry" a Chinese man. They told me my Chinese husband would protect me from getting caught by the Chinese police. So it seemed that this was the best choice I could make. I had already come to China and I didn’t want to go back to North Korea. I was prepared to do anything to have a better life, so I told the couple that I would live with a Chinese man.
The next morning the couple took me to a car and we started driving.
In the car, I started getting scared. The only thing I knew was that I was going to live with a Chinese man I had never met, and I was just hoping that my life would somehow get better through the marriage. After driving for a while, we arrived in a small city in China. There I met some Chinese people who turned out to be family members of the man I would marry.
I saw one of them give money to the couple who had brought me there. It was then that I realized that I had been sold.
A part of me still felt I could do anything to have a better life. But it didn’t feel good to be sold like an object. Even to this day, there are so many North Korean women being trafficked like I was. This kind of trafficking is now an industry.
I also felt selfish for leaving my mother and sister without letting them know. I came all this way so that I could have a better life, but I missed them a lot. I didn’t know what would happen next or how the Chinese man would treat me. At that point, I wanted to run away, but it was too late and there was nowhere to go. It was a small town in the country and I didn’t know anything, including the Chinese language.
Without having a proper wedding, I started living with the Chinese man - I don’t even want to call him my husband. It was frustrating not knowing any Chinese. And since I was sold into the marriage, I didn’t love the man. So it was really hard for me to live with him.
Despite all of this, I would eventually have my first daughter with him.
He and his family farmed for a living and were very poor. His family didn’t treat me well. They made me do all sorts of hard work on the farm and they would say bad things about me. Sometimes I even got hit. I wasn’t familiar with the area and couldn’t speak the language very well for the first couple of years. And there was always the danger of getting caught by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea.
I cried a lot whenever I was by myself. I knew I had to keep enduring it for my daughter but it was so tough.
I started hearing from some people around me that I could live safely and freely if I could make it to South Korea. I didn’t want to leave my daughter, but I couldn’t keep living this life without freedom. So I decided to run away, hoping that I could come back for my daughter later.
I soon discovered that it would cost me a lot of money to find people who could take me to South Korea. I had no money, so I ended up getting sold to another Chinese man in order to survive.
Living with the second Chinese man was even worse than with the first one. I still had to do a lot of hard farming work and he was always watching me. He was suspicious that I was going to try to run away. When he went to work he brought me to his workplace so he could still watch me. And he was not kind to me. Whenever I got sick, he didn’t care.
I felt so unloved and suppressed.
Soon, I was pregnant with my second daughter. All the while, my desire to go to South Korea kept growing. I thought about giving up on my unborn daughter, knowing that I couldn’t be a good mother to her while living like this in China. And I knew it would be even harder for me to leave after I gave birth to the baby. But I didn’t want to leave another child of mine for my own freedom.
After hearing from some people that I could raise my child with support from the government in South Korea, I started having hope. I dreamt about living there with my baby. So I looked for opportunities to run away from the second Chinese man, even though he was always watching me. At some point, I met another North Korean woman who lived in my town and who had also been sold into a marriage. She said she could connect me to people in a different city who could help me go to South Korea.
When I was eight months pregnant and my stomach was so big, the Chinese man didn’t watch me as much as he had before. Maybe he thought my body was too heavy to run away. So one day I left home, telling him that I was going to my friend’s house. But actually, I was going to another city to meet people who would connect me to LiNK’s network.
When I was about to leave the town, however, I got caught by the Chinese man. He made me sit behind him on his motorcycle and was taking me back to his house. Riding on the back of the motorcycle, my hat got blown off my head by the wind. I asked him to stop so I could pick it up. It was my favorite hat. He said, “No, we aren’t going to stop. Forget about the hat.”
At that moment, my whole heart and body were telling me, “Do not give up on what you deserve. You deserve to have a simple hat and you deserve to live in freedom like a human being.”
I don’t know how I did it but I jumped off the motorcycle while it was moving. Luckily he wasn’t going too fast and I landed on my back so the baby didn’t get hurt, and I was okay other than scratching my forehead while rolling on the ground.
I got up and started walking toward where the hat fell. The man asked me where I was going and I told him that I was going to get my hat. His motorcycle had lost balance and fallen after I jumped. He didn’t even ask how I was as he started to inspect it for damage. I realized this was my opportunity to run away again. So I grabbed my hat and started running up into the nearby mountains.
I kept going up and up until I was near the top where I could see the road, the man, and his motorcycle. I hid there for a few hours, scared of getting caught by him again. I actually saw him driving around to find me. So I climbed further up and over the other side of the mountain.
Being eight months pregnant, my body was very heavy. But I had to keep moving to get away from the man. I made it over the mountain.
I started heading to the city by taking different vehicles. One time I got on a truck that was transporting dogs. Since all the space was taken by the dogs, I had to sit on one of the guys’ laps in the front seat.
Finally, after some long bus rides that made me feel sick, I connected with LiNK’s network.
Continue reading with Part 3.
Empowering North Korean Refugees | An Overview of LiNK’s Programs
North Korean people live in the most authoritarian and closed country in the world, deprived of their basic human rights and potential. For decades, they’ve faced a brutal dictatorship, systematic oppression, and enforced poverty. Despite the circumstances, North Koreans are striving towards freedom from both inside and outside of the country, creating irreversible change.
Since its founding in 2004, Liberty in North Korea has not wavered in its vision- a day when every North Korean man, woman, and child can live free and full lives. Yet during that time, our approach has shifted, transformed, and evolved. With an issue as complex as North Korea and as fundamental as human rights, we needed a holistic set of programs to enact change at multiple levels.
Refugee rescues are just the beginning. Over the years, we’ve expanded our approach and developed new ways to support and build the capacity of North Korean people. Here’s how we’re working together to accelerate change.
Rescue and Resettlement Support
The journey to freedom is not an easy one, but it begins with a choice. A choice to hope, to live, and sometimes to leave. Over the last decade, more than 1,300 North Korean refugees and their children have made this difficult decision and reached freedom through LiNK’s networks.
LiNK provides critical humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees in China, helping them escape through a “modern day underground railroad.” It’s a dangerous 3,000 mile journey from the border of North Korea to Southeast Asia, from where they can safely resettle in South Korea or the U.S. The route is dotted with security checkpoints, state-of-the-art surveillance, and the constant risk of being forcibly sent back. The Chinese government refuses to recognize North Koreans as refugees, instead cooperating with the North Korean regime. If caught, North Korean refugees are forcibly returned to North Korea, where they may face severe punishment, imprisonment, torture, and even execution.
Helping North Koreans escape has only become more challenging since the start of the pandemic. Extreme border lockdowns and unprecedented restrictions made the journey nearly impossible and left many vulnerable refugees stuck in hiding, at even greater risk of exploitation. But the North Korean people didn’t give up, and neither did we. Our field team worked tirelessly to establish new routes and adapt to the circumstances on the ground, making rescues a reality again in late 2022. Despite restarting rescues, the significant increase in costs have depleted our rescue funds, leaving many North Korean refugees waiting, once again, for an opportunity to escape.
We were also able to work with the U.S. Government to help unique and exceptional cases of North Koreans in third countries come to the United States utilizing a process known as “Humanitarian Parole” (HP). HP cases do not arrive in the U.S. with refugee status. As a result, LiNK provides full sponsorship and support in housing, medical, and financial assistance; interpretation and translation services; and coordinating legal needs to receive status.
Though nothing short of a herculean effort, reaching freedom is just the beginning. And navigating this newfound autonomy comes with unique challenges in both the U.S. and South Korea. Resettled North Koreans face enormous social, cultural and technological chasms that must be bridged in a short period of time. Many describe the transition like stepping out of a time machine, fifty years into the future.
LiNK’s resettlement program helps support the success of North Korean refugees. Whether this means financial assistance, making home visits, connecting people to resources and services, hosting workshops, or organizing community gatherings, we work together to develop self efficacy for a sustainable future.
From rescue to resettlement, LiNK walks with North Korean refugees into their new lives. A world of endless possibilities awaits, and we’re excited to see them reach their full potential and achieve their dreams.
Empowering Agents of Change
Emerging from one of the most hostile regimes in the world, North Korean defectors have demonstrated strength and resilience that most of us can not even imagine. They’ve asserted themselves as their people’s greatest hope. One of our biggest opportunities is to go beyond just resettlement support and invest in developing the capacity of North Koreans as agents of change.
A consistently reported challenge we hear from North Koreans is English language ability. It’s not only an essential skill for access to educational and career opportunities–it’s a tool to promote self-efficacy and narrative agency. In response to this need, we launched the LiNK English Language program (LELP) in South Korea. As of Fall 2022, over 200 North Korean students have participated in this program and were matched 1:1 with volunteer tutors. They emerged with the confidence and communication skills to advocate for themselves and others, and new connections that will last a lifetime.
"Before taking the program, I always felt reluctant to respond whenever foreigners came and asked for directions. Now I am not afraid of speaking in English anymore! I was able to improve and make more complete sentences by practicing grammar lessons. As LiNK’s vision is to help the North Korean people achieve freedom, LELP helped me achieve freedom in my English!"
– Minjeong, LELP 2021 participant
For North Koreans who are interested in growing as activists through their studies and extracurricular activities, LiNK offers the Changemakers Scholarship. Recipients are provided with six months of financial support to increase their capacity for advocacy work. Before participating in the program, only 9.6% of participants felt financially stable. After the program, 58% felt financially stable, their part-time job hours decreased by 7 hours a week on average, and 45% of participants saw an increase in their GPA.
On the U.S. side, many North Korean refugees have a difficult time finding professional development opportunities and breaking into the industries that interest them. Through our Mentorship Program, we connect them with mentors who can provide guidance on everything from resume building and interview strategies to financial management, investing, and counseling.
By developing programs like this, we’re empowering North Koreans with the confidence and capacity to navigate the world and be an agent of change. They’re educating audiences about North Korea and mobilizing Allies (like you!) around the world. They’re sending money and information back to their families in North Korea, transforming their country from the bottom up. Most importantly, they’re proving the potential of the 25 million people inside North Korea still striving towards freedom and a better future.
Accelerating Change in North Korea
A crucial way the North Korean government maintains control is by preventing the people from accessing outside information and media, instead bombarding them with propaganda. Despite this, North Korean people have found ways to access foreign information through smuggled devices and the proliferation of grassroots market activity.
Foreign media can have a powerful influence on how North Koreans perceive the outside world. Consuming smuggled movies, television shows, and music is not just entertaining–it’s educational. A screen can become someone’s window to the world. Through it, they see what it means to live in freedom and can begin to call their own reality into question.
"As more and more people gradually become informed about the reality of their living conditions, the North Korean government will either have to change and adapt in positive ways for its citizens, or to face the consequences of their escalating dissatisfaction. Much more needs to be done to increase the flows of information into North Korea.”
– Thae Yong-ho, Ex-North Korean Diplomat
North Korean defectors consistently say that increasing people’s access to outside information is one of the most effective ways to accelerate change inside the country. LiNK Labs is our space to innovate new ideas that empower North Korean people with information and technology from the outside world.
While much of this work must remain highly confidential to be effective, some key strategies include:
- Collaborating with external partners, including recently arrived defectors for the latest intel on the information landscape in North Korea
- Creating and curating content tailored for North Koreans inside the country
- Localizing existing technologies for safer distribution and consumption of information
With ongoing pandemic-related border closures and restrictions on movement, the information landscape in North Korea has become even more challenging in recent years. The regime has increased the severity of crackdowns and punishment for consuming and sharing foreign media, including credible reports of executions. This shows not just where the regime’s priorities lie, but that these social changes are a real threat to the regime’s control in the long term.
Changing the Narrative on North Korea
While dictators and nuclear missiles command headlines about North Korea, they erase the real heart of the country– its people. This is what the regime wants, to control the narrative both domestically and internationally. So when North Korean defectors share their authentic stories and perspectives, it’s a powerful act of defiance and a crucial way to change the narrative on North Korea. LiNK amplifies North Korean voices through online media, documentaries, and events, and empowers North Korean people to take authorship over their own stories.
LiNK’s Advocacy Fellows program supports and develops the next generation of North Korean leaders, storytellers, and advocates. We believe they will be the ones to create a new vision for North Korea and spearhead that change. Fellows participate in workshops to improve their knowledge on the issue, English language, public speaking, and storytelling skills before traveling across the United States. They speak at churches, community centers, universities, and Fortune 500 companies, and also brief key policy makers and stakeholders. Audiences have included the United Nations, State Department, The White House, National Security Council, the intelligence community, and embassies and think-tanks. Ultimately, Fellows are working to bring a greater focus to the North Korean people and human rights issues rather than just politics.
75% of people who attended an Advocacy Fellows event said it was their first time meeting a North Korean person, and 81% said their perspective on North Korea had been forever changed.
Young South Koreans also have massive potential to be a greater force for progress. Despite sharing a border and heritage with North Korea, the general public in South Korea has become increasingly disengaged from the issue. For decades, the narrative has been centered on politics and the threat of war, and this has contributed to creating an unwelcome environment for many North Korean refugees resettling in South Korea. We’re working to humanize people’s perspective of North Korea and raise a new generation of South Korean activists through our Co-Creators Program.
Each year, Co-Creators brings together North and South Korean students to work on collaborative advocacy projects, tapping into their potential as changemakers and activists redefining North Korea for their generation. They pitch ideas, train with us to improve writing and storytelling skills, and then execute their concept in the public sphere. In 2022, Co-Creators organized a Jangmadang (North Korean market) experience where visitors could learn more about the issue through interactive booths. They reached a total of 242,423 participants both online and in-person over the course of three days.
We believe it will be this new generation of young North and South Korean activists who will influence government policy and public attitudes towards North Korea, and will be crucial in shaping the country’s future when North Korea is finally free.
All around the world, we’re mobilizing a movement of support for the North Korean people. Our goal is to rally 25 million Allies – one Ally for every person in North Korea – who will help us inspire this generation, advocate for change, and stand with the North Korean people. Helping us to achieve this are LiNK Teams, student and community groups across the globe that are committed to seeing the North Korean people achieve their liberty in our lifetime.
Up until now, the scale of humanity’s response to this issue has not matched the scale of the challenge and oppression that the North Korean people face. By changing the narrative on North Korea, we believe that we can change the way that people, institutions, and governments respond to this challenge, and provide the support and resources the North Korean people deserve in order to determine their own future.
A Story of Human Triumph
From helping North Koreans in their escape to empowering a new generation of changemakers, our work is only possible because of the Liberty Community - monthly donors who enable us to develop and sustain these life-changing programs. Because of this community, we can rise to new challenges and sustainably develop long-term solutions.
Join the Liberty community today
To ensure that the story of North Korea is one of human triumph, freedom, and the fulfilled potential of 25 million North Korean people!
