The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

So when might this suffering end? Some Koreans will say with reunification. That should be our dream on both sides of the border, although, after more than sixty years of separation, and a radical divergence in living standards, many in the South face the prospect with trepidation. But we can’t sit on our hands while we wait for the miracle of a new, unified Korea. If we do, the descendants of divided families will reconnect as strangers. Reunification, when it happens, and it will happen, may be less turbulent if the ordinary people of North and South can at least have some contact, be permitted to have family vacations together, or attend the weddings of nephews and nieces. The least that could be done for defectors is to ensure that they know, when they risk everything to escape, that they will not be lost for ever to the people they left behind, that they have supporters and well-wishers the world over, that they are not crossing the border alone.

Slowly, I started speaking out in defence of defectors, and about the human rights abuses in North Korea – first, in defector group meetings, then in small public speeches, then on a new television show called Now on My Way to Meet You, in which all the guests were female defectors, given new clothes in vibrant colours to dispel public perceptions of North Koreans as shabby and pitiful. The show had a big impact in transforming attitudes in South Korea toward defectors.

I started thinking deeply about human rights. One of the main reasons that distinctions between oppressor and victim are blurred in North Korea is that no one there has any concept of rights. To know that your rights are being abused, or that you are abusing someone else’s, you first have to know that you have them, and what they are. But with no comparative information about societies elsewhere in the world, such awareness in North Korea cannot exist. This is also why most people escape because they’re hungry or in trouble – not because they’re craving liberty. Many defectors hiding in China even baulk at the idea of going to South Korea – they’d see it as a betrayal of their country and the legacy of the Great Leader. If the North Korean people acquired an awareness of their rights, of individual freedoms and democracy, the game would be up for the regime in Pyongyang. The people would realize that full human rights are exercised and enjoyed by one person only – the ruling Kim. He is the only figure in North Korea who exercises freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, his right not to be tortured, imprisoned, or executed without trial, and his right to proper healthcare and food.

Slowly, I started speaking out in defence of defectors, and about the human rights abuses in North Korea – first, in defector group meetings, then in small public speeches, then on a new television show called Now on My Way to Meet You, in which all the guests were female defectors, given new clothes in vibrant colours to dispel public perceptions of North Koreans as shabby and pitiful. The show had a big impact in transforming attitudes in South Korea toward defectors.

I started thinking deeply about human rights. One of the main reasons that distinctions between oppressor and victim are blurred in North Korea is that no one there has any concept of rights. To know that your rights are being abused, or that you are abusing someone else’s, you first have to know that you have them, and what they are. But with no comparative information about societies elsewhere in the world, such awareness in North Korea cannot exist. This is also why most people escape because they’re hungry or in trouble – not because they’re craving liberty. Many defectors hiding in China even baulk at the idea of going to South Korea – they’d see it as a betrayal of their country and the legacy of the Great Leader. If the North Korean people acquired an awareness of their rights, of individual freedoms and democracy, the game would be up for the regime in Pyongyang. The people would realize that full human rights are exercised and enjoyed by one person only – the ruling Kim. He is the only figure in North Korea who exercises freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, his right not to be tortured, imprisoned, or executed without trial, and his right to proper healthcare and food.