Category Archives: North Korea
Join the North Korean Freedom Week Events
Update from Suzanne Scholte
of North Korea Freedom Coalition
I am pleased to send another update on the events confirmed for North Korea Freedom Week April 26-May 3, 2008.
Please note that since my last update we have added several additional events: another panel session, a special demonstration by Youth for Truth and as a testament to the importance of North Korea Freedom Week, the producer of the soon-to-be-released movie Crossing, Patrick Cheh, is coming to show a special screening of this movie that is scheduled for threatrical release in South Korea in June.
China Raises Bounty on NK Refugees 1600%
A year’s Pay for One NK Defector
Stories of a shocking new development are just beginning to leak out of China. The government there has just raised the stakes in the human rights issue now coming to a boil. While the world’s attention is focused on the uproar in Tibet, other important developments are quietly taking place in the shadows.
NK Eyewitnesses Describe Winter Nightmare
Conditions Along Chinese-NK Border as of January
According to Kim (40), who runs one of our organization’s shelters on the Chinese-North Korean border, 118 North Korean defectors sought shelter between November 18 and December 25, 2007. During the winter, food and winter clothing are the biggest problems for North Korean citizens. Most defectors are dressed lightly in summer wear and without socks. This is unbearable in the Yanbian region, when the Tumen River is already frozen and the temperature falls to -20C at night.
Report on Foster Parent Programme
A Look Back — A Look Forward
Although it seems like only yesterday that Life Funds for North Korean Refugees started its Foster Parent / Education Programme, it was actually begun back in 1998. The intervening ten years have seen the Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun administrations’ Sunshine Policy and policy of engagement of North Korea turn into de facto support for the Kim Jong Il regime. However, with the February election of the hard-nosed, pragmatic Lee Myung-Bak administration, the relationship between South and North looks set to change to one of reciprocity.
Human Trafficking Victim – Choi Chong-mi
Name: Choi Chong-mi
(Female, Name changed for safety)
Birth date: 1969
Hometown: Hamgyong Bukto
It is an unending nightmare. I don’t know how to begin telling everything that has happened to me. It will probably sound like fiction to you. When I was two years old, following the death of my father, I was taken in by four aunts and an uncle. My cousins were like my parents, sisters and brother.
Human Trafficking Victim – Lee Sun Ja
Name: Lee Sun Ja
(Female, Name changed for safety)
Date of Birth: 1981
Hometown: Hamgyong Bukto, North Korea
When I was three years old, my parents suddenly disappeared. Nobody knows if they died or if they were sent into a concentration camp for political prisoners. My step-parents treated me worse than a beast. I was hardly fed daily, so I grew up as a beggar. Since I remained a Kot-jebi (street child) until I escaped into China, I never had a chance to go to a school. In North Korea, while I was living the Kot-jebi life, I begged but I also broke into houses to steal from time to time.
Proposed Action Plan for 2007-2008
Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, NGO
Strained Relations
The crackdown on North Korean refugees by both the Chinese and North Korean governments has drastically cut the flow of North Koreans into China, reducing it to levels below those of the past decade. China’s official position is that North Korean refugees do not exist, a stance that blatantly ignores international law, including the Convention on the Status of Refugees, to which it is a signatory nation.
Escapee from North Korea Sold as Slave to a Sex Chat Site
First, Banished to the Middle of Nowhere for Watching a South Korean Movie
Hwang Miryon, 19
Former Chongjin University student
(Name changed to protect her safety)
My family was relatively well-off even in Chongjin, but in August 2005 we were suddenly struck by misfortune, something we could never have imagined. It all started when a family with whom we were friends was arrested on charges of watching a foreign film. An acquaintance of the wife was arrested by the “109 Brigade” and before we knew it they had come for us as well.