North Korean defector: Exposing reality 'most powerful form of resistance'

In "Hidden State: Inside North Korea," Fault Lines gains rare access into North Korea and examines the impact of U.S. policies on the secretive nation. The film airs Monday, January 19, at 9 pm Eastern time/6 pm Pacific on Al Jazeera America. | Click here to find Al Jazeera in your area.

Soon after the current North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un came to power after the death of his father in 2011, he tightened security along the country’s border with China to prevent defections. As a result, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, the number of North Koreans who have arrived in South Korea has dropped since 2012.

“Kim Ji-Woo” (not her real name) fled North Korea in 2013. She’d been considering leaving her home for nearly seven years before she made the dangerous journey to China, and eventually to Seoul. That’s where Fault Lines met her in the course of reporting “Hidden State: Inside North Korea.” Kim accuses the North Korean government of serious human rights abuses.

This is her story, as told to Fault Lines correspondent Teresa Bo and producer Nicole Salazar. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.  

We North Koreans aren’t docile, stupid people.

Right now, we can’t react even though we want to, because it would result in not just our deaths, but the deaths of our children for three to four generations to come. So we just bear it.

The best thing, the only thing North Koreans can do to fight against their government is to defect. To defect and do interviews and expose the reality in North Korea. I think that’s the most powerful form of resistance.

I decided to defect as early as 2006. But I didn’t know much about South Korean society. We are taught from infancy such negative propaganda about South Korea. I wasn’t sure whether I would be welcome. People are constantly exposed to campaigns, lectures, conferences and classes about how South Korea pretends to accept defectors and then, after three years, secretly murders all of them. We’ve heard so many campaigns saying this that even though I had made the decision, it was hard to gather the courage to actually come.

But in 2013, it just became utterly impossible to live in North Korea. Survival was no longer up to me, and even though I was still alive, it was impossible to imagine a future for my children. So I decided that even if I died, at least my spirit should get to South Korea. And even if I couldn’t get there, at least I could go to a third country and expose the reality of North Korea.

So if I deny the charge, it’s their loss. So they just come out and say explicitly, “You’re worse than an insect, don’t think of yourself as a human. Stop calling yourself a human and think of yourself as a bug. That’s the attitude you should take when you address me.” That’s how they behave.

I got out after about two months. I was fired from all my jobs. They sent me to the Training Corps for three months where I underwent ideological reform. After that, I became a social outcast. I was like a drop of oil in a pool of water. No one would communicate with me, and no one would talk to me. They isolate you.

I saw that this wasn’t something that would affect just me, but my child, too. The government watches every step you take, they monitor you to a degree you can’t even imagine. So I had to cut off all social ties. And it was impossible for my child to get an education, so I decided to defect.

For the sake of my only remaining son, to give him a good education and a chance at a better life, I had to leave. When my son gets here, I want to give him an education. I also want to send him abroad to study. I want him to do the medical studies that his late-sister had wanted to do so much. I want him to fulfill her dream.

I didn’t know anyone in South Korea. I had no one telling me to come over, nothing. But it was the only way for me, for my son to survive. So I staked my life on it.

When I arrived in China, I was unconscious.

I hid out by the Amnok River for a day, in an isolated spot in the woods. [Ed. note: The river is more commonly known as the Yalu River.] And when the guards changed shifts, I took a backpack and jumped in the water. I was in the water for three hours.

The part of the river that I crossed was incredibly deep, it was where four currents all came together. And it had to be a place like that, because the border patrol there was less stringent. I didn’t have a thread on my back. I didn’t know how to swim. And I just jumped in. I was so close to dying, I realized.

I had a photo of my deceased daughter. And without even realizing it, I said, “God please save me. If I die, what will my son do?” Strangely enough, the currents are always flowing toward North Korea. But honestly, I would rather have drowned then go back and be arrested. My life would have been unthinkable, and my son’s, too. I would have spent life in prison. So I was determined that if I didn’t make it across, I would rather drown.

When I got to the Chinese shore, I crawled out and thought I should head toward the light. And there I was, on the road, collapsed. My clothes had come off, and I’d lost my shoes. All I had was my backpack, and that had torn so everything had spilled out and it was empty.

Then someone passing on a motorcycle found me, and took me to his friend’s house. The friend whose house he took me to was a church deacon. He was a deacon among the Han people, and he was a person of Korean ethnicity whose family immigrated to China.