A North Korean's Journey: Emigrating as a girl, fighting as a woman.

16 août 2017
2 min de lecture

Yeonmi Park is a woman of 23 years old who left North Korea during her childhood. Her background and experiences have turned her into a symbol of the fight for human rights. Let's step into her past and its consequences in her mind.

Crossing hell

In 2007, Yeonmi Park felt forced to leave her own country at the age of only 14. Younger, she was completely indoctrinated: "I thought that our leader could read in my mind" she explained. This highlights the issue of regimentation of youth. Nevertheless, she came from a family luckier than most of the others: her father was rich and felt free to criticize his country.

Her father was first imprisoned for his commercial activities and then he planned his family's escape to China. Indeed, the border between North and South Korea is overprotected: it is safer to escape from the the other side of the country. However, some children migrants in China are victim of abuses from human traffickers, and Yeonmi was lucky to have her mother's protection.

The Park Family in North Korea

After that, she was rescued by Korean and Chinese Christian missionaries who helped her going to Mongolia, where she had to cross Gobi's desert. She was finally arrested at Mongolia's border. There, her mother and her were ready to commit suicide if they were obliged to come back to their homeland. She declared later: "I thought it was the end of my life. We were saying goodbye to each other." Fortunately, and even miraculously, she was sent to South Korea where she could follow studies again.

Let's make it turn into paradise

Now, Yeonmi Park is fighting on many fronts. She first became a

member of the organization "Liberty in North Korea", which rescue refugees hidden in China. She then denounced many issues dealing with North Korean immigration, such as discrimination North Korean refugees, even with children at school, or the touristic activities which participate to the regime's propaganda. But overall, she shared her story to the world and explained how we can support Korean refugees in her book "I only wanted to leave" published in 2016.

Park's Book, available on Amazon (€17,53)

A non-ended story

Even if grey areas still exist in her story, Yeonmi Park permitted to highlight the issue of Korean children immigration to the general public. Nevertheless, her fight is not over: the dictator Kim Jong Un is still thoughly leading her homeland and stealing childhood of North Korean people.