Many of the people who’ve fled North Korea have harrowing stories to tell, but speaking openly can often have costly consequences.
On tonight’s Dateline at 9.30pm on SBS ONE, Yaara Bou Melhem follows the landmark UN inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea, led by former Australian High Court Judge Michael Kirby.
Here, she writes about some of the people she met, who are now doing their best to make new lives in the UK…
Most people who escape North Korea leave family and friends behind, and it’s concern for them that forces many to remain silent.
North Korea has a harsh system of inferred criminality across generations. It means a son, daughter, sister, brother or grandchild speaking out could lead to up to three generations of a family being punished.
This fear has bound Park Ji Yung, one of the witnesses who came forward to testify at the UN Inquiry, for the better part of her last five years in the UK.
Only recently has she begun to publicly speak out about human rights and women’s issues in North Korea and China.
Most of Park’s family have fled North Korea or have already died. She was forced to leave her dying father and is unsure about the wellbeing of a brother, who she believes at best is in prison or at worst died while in captivity.
She was sold into marriage after first fleeing from North Korea to China, but is now finally making a new life for herself and her family in the north of England.
Park’s second husband is also a North Korean defector. He still has family in North Korea so is mindful of concealing his identity. He is proud of his wife’s courage to speak out about the horrors she endured. He told me if he too could afford to go public he would, but there’s too much personally at stake.
"This is the only way human rights in North Korea will improve," Ji Yung tells me. "Just because we’re happy now, and try to forget our past, even though it’s not something you can forget, there will be more women involved in human trafficking and more children who have to go through this pain."
But they are grateful to be out and able to raise their children in the relative safety and security of the UK. I don't think the children fully comprehend yet though. They ask why they don't have family around they can visit at Christmas and Easter like the other kids at school do. What do you say to that?
North Korea remains one of the world’s most tightly controlled and censored countries in the world, restricting international media access to the country and feeding information to its own citizens mostly through the government’s official news agency.
Another of the witnesses at the UN Inquiry, Kim Joo-il, wants to change that.
The former North Korean soldier and Chairman of the North Korea Residents Association of the UK has set up the ‘Free NK’ newspaper.
“We want the people of North Korea to realise that their human rights are being violated,” he tells me at his small office in Surrey.
While his website is blocked in North Korea, he says he knows smuggling routes that he aims to use to take his newspaper into his homeland.
It may seem dangerous but Joo-il says it’s his way of trying to counter the narrative from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. He’s lost hope in the international community coming to the rescue of North Korea, saying three generations of autocratic rule in his country support that view.
Joo-il says change will only come from North Koreans themselves.
“We want people to become advocates of their own rights. It is risky and dangerous but I believe it is something that needs to be done. If this can bring change to the North Korean community then the risk is worth it. “
Hear more of the defectors’ stories and Justice Michael Kirby talking about his mission to find out what’s really going on in North Korea on Dateline tonight at 9.30pm on SBS ONE.
Share
