And yet, North Korea has always fascinated me. We don’t know very much at all about what is going on behind their borders. Sometimes people willingly risk their lives to gain footage, and after a bit of intense googling we can find clips of orphans picking food out of piles of rubbish, or dead bodies lining the street, ignored, or even public executions. What we do know is that the situation is desperate, and pretty much totally out of our control. Following the divide of the peninsula in 1953, the country has grown independent from exterior influence. A unique culture has sprung from this, some of which is the product of communist controlled thought, and others the hope and perseverance that comes from such hardships. All of it is like nothing I have ever seen before.
Photo credit: Eric Lafforgue
If you are interested in learning more about life inside North Korea, I would really recommend reading In Order To Live by Yeonmi Park. It has made me believe a book really can change the world. A ridiculous amount of unthinkable shit happened to her that I wouldn’t hope to touch on here, but in short Park grew up in North Korea, where she often suffered famine and poverty. When she was thirteen her and her mother defected to China, where they would be sold as wives to Chinese brokers and farmers, essentially becoming slaves. Eventually they escaped via the Gobi Desert to Mongolia, from which they would ultimately fly to South Korea to find freedom.
Everything about this book shocked me, but the China section particularly struck a chord. I knew North Korea can be a terrible place to live, particularly for those unable to access food, but I thought after escape life would get easier. And yet it almost seemed worse. Fear of being found by Chinese authorities is huge for North Korean refugees; their alliance with North Korea means that if the refugees are found they are sent right back, to ultimately end up in labour camps or even executed. If you dodge the authorities, the odds of being sold as a wife, prostitute or slave are pretty high. Sold to become the wife of a broker, Park was regularly raped and abused, and she was lucky in comparison with so many other defectors. Even when she reached South Korea she was initially treated as a prisoner.
Pretty much every chapter of the novel made me cry. I had no idea how much shit these people had to go through with the world seemingly ignoring their plight. It seems so unfair that the even though North Korea is constantly ridiculed for being inhumane, those that escape receive little help and protection. I was desperate to know what could be done to solve the issue. But, good news, things can be done to help.
What NOT to do is encourage the importation of aid into North Korea. It does not go to the starving people, instead ending up on the black market only affordable to those with the funds to purchase it, closing the supply off to those who really need it. It is in fact feeding the system.
The best thing to do to help defectors is to support charities that help with rescue and resettlement such as Liberty in North Korea or Helping Hands Korea. Another major issue for North Koreans when they reach Seoul is employment, and English lessons and other training courses can help them restart their lives. Check out TNKR for more info on how to get involved.
To help the situation in North Korea from the inside, arguably the best way is to support NGOs, who filter dissenting stories into the country. From stories of the collapse of the Soviet Union to Western films, the introduction of an alternate world view helps break the cycle of brain washing and propaganda that North Koreans are subject to their entire lives. Charities such as HRNK focus on this work.
And if those options aren’t accessible to you, follow and support the movement and educate yourself. Read In Order to Live. Share videos online. Watch documentaries (here are some highly informative ones). Support what Yeonmi is doing on Facebook and Twitter. Or just talk to people about it. What is happening in North Korea is real and it’s happening and we are incredibly lucky not to be a part of the 24.9 million that were born there. As Yeonmi once said in an interview, Kim Jong Un is not a joke, he has created hell on this earth. We need to take the situation seriously if anything is going to change. I can only hope one day it does, for the better.
I would just like to say that I am in no way an expert on North Korea and am just drawing on the multitude of things I have read and seen on the situation out there. I have attended talks by defectors, visited the DMZ and studied the history of the country and I believe I am educated enough to argue how the situation can be helped. There is much I do not know, but from what I do, I feel a strong urge to try and help make a difference, even if it is minor.
I recently finished reading the book In Order to Live. It was incredibly emotional to read her journey. It seems hard to believe that this is happening right now in the world, and yet it still is.
Right I cried many times. It’s crazy, especially with the supposed better relations between America and South Korea with the North. As long as there’s no nukes no one seems to give a damn about all the breaches of basic human rights and laws.