Living in North Korea is like trying to burn a candle whilst caught in a blizzard, tough and unyielding. The citizens that decide to escape in search of a better life commonly known as ‘defectors’ have to live in exile, without an identity as it is illegal to leave the country. The life of a North Korean defector is one full of sadness and uncertainty. It is an uphill battle on treacherous terrain with dangers lurking all around be-it high voltage electric fences or Chinese guards waiting to capture and send them back to North Korea where they will be tortured. The defectors that have lived to tell the tale show us how life is valued there, the blatant human rights violations and cruelty of the North Korean regime.
Most of the general public in North Korea live in poverty under a despotic regime with a tyrannical leader, no access to the internet, restrictions on movement and the fear of being sent to prison or executed for merely having an opinion. However, they do not know any better. They have been taught to love Kim Jong Un and hate capitalism through brainwashing and propaganda. As Kwangmyung Lee, 31, a North Korean defector gave his account of what living in North Korea was like, he said: “When I lived in North Korea, I thought that the ‘great leader’ was my idol, my star. I really wanted to meet him before I died, and I thought ‘when the war happens, I would risk my life for him’.
“That’s really ignorant thinking. A lot of people believe him and that’s total brainwashing.”
Yeeun Byeon, 35, a North Korean defector recalls her life in North Korea, she said: “Every day was a series of violence. It was hell, on earth.
“Parents would get assaulted by the police, in front of their children and their blood had to be cleaned by the children. Until now, such terrible scenes have never been seen in any historical dramas because it is hell no one can imagine.”
A map of the prison camps in North Korea
Any opposition to the regime even verbally or following another religion could lead to people being executed or sent to prison camps where their social status is stripped away, and they must endure a life of pain in unsanitary conditions. According to Amnesty International in 2019, “Up to 120,000 detainees in the camps were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, forced labour, and harsh conditions including inadequate food.” There are currently six confirmed prison camps in North Korea according to the U.S. Department of State out of which two of the confirmed camps can be seen on Google Earth (Camp14, Kaechon and Camp15, Yodok).
The brutal punishment of being sent to prison camps is not just limited to the person that has committed the crime but extends to 3 generations affiliated with that individual. The Kim cult has made it impossible for citizens to even speak freely in their own homes for fear of death. A common saying among North Koreans is, “My friend who is the closest to me today is the scariest enemy tomorrow. So be careful! Birds listen to me during the day. Rats listen to me at Night,” says Yeeun.
A picture of Kwangmyung from when he was in North Korea before he escaped to South Korea in 2008.
As a young girl in North Korea, Yeeun witnessed families being ripped apart by the state for the pettiest crimes possible. Her own friend’s father was publicly executed for eating beef because livestock was considered state property. Her Neighbour was also punished for just saying, 'Our country is a prison without iron bars’ and all her cousins were imprisoned in a political prison camp.
As blazing embers of their home collapse around them in a house fire, North Koreans have to first save the portraits of the ‘great leaders’ or they will be sent to a prison camp. Kwangmyung said: “When I was living in North Korea, I knew the first thing I had to do was save the portraits if my house was burning down.
“But if the situation is serious I should be allowed to save my life first. I shouldn’t have to save it. I still wonder how it can be a crime to not save photographs before saving your life when everything’s burning down! It’s nonsense.”
To brainwash citizens, the government uses propaganda, and it is spread through every means possible. Yeeun remembers colourful flyer strewn alleyways plastered with nationalistic slogans like, “Capitalism makes beggars and robbers!”, “let's kill the American guy!” and “Don't forget the evil deeds of the Japanese!”. School curriculums too were altered to feed children what the government wanted them to know to strengthen the regime much like how the Jewish demographic lived in World War Two against the backdrop of Nazism.
“The peculiar thing is that our children are trained in war from the age of 3. They learn that North Korea is the superior country through the game of winning by killing Americans,” says Yeeun. Therefore, North Korea’s constant mechanization for murder, be it through stockpiling of nukes or brainwashing children is evident. In Kwangmyung’s early days in North Korea, he was only taught about the basics of world history and not even about the Jewish holocausts which indicate that information is heavily filtered by the regime before it is disseminated among the general public.
The regime indulges in censorship to manipulate people into believing that North Korea is the best country in the world. North Korea is currently on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) list of the top 5 most censored countries in the world. The general public does not even have internet access.
Kwangmyung also said: “North Korea does not have any independent news companies; they are all controlled by the government.” “The front page of the newspaper is always the same. They are the words of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-Il, and Kim Jong-Un and there are tasks for the whole country to complete like ‘citizens must serve the state’ and ‘farm employees have a monthly assignment’.” “Sometimes they report false news of developed countries, for example, a scene of a protest on the street or an election campaign,” says Yeeun. Increased censorship in a country can limit the scope of information the rest of the world receives about it especially since we live in a digital age. The amount of information available to Western media is very little due to the restrictions imposed on the internet and social media in this country too hence the less news people see about a certain issue the less likely they are to spread awareness and inflict change.
Punishment goes too far and transitions into a holocaust when people are persecuted for simply being who they are. The high-handed approach and the imbalance of crime compared to punishment demonstrates the rigid rules set by the regime. The alternative to living life in a North Korean gulag is defection but “It is a sin to defect to another country. Getting caught as a defector is more terrifying than war,” says Yeeun.
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