This is Jung Ha. She is one of over 500 North Korean refugees who has reached freedom through a rescue. Please donate to rescue and support refugees who need it now.
Yoon Ha’s Story: Part 3 – Making it to South Korea
March 16, 2017
This is the third part of a three-part story. Read part one about the hardships Yoon Ha experienced growing up in North Korea, and part two about being trafficked in Chin...
This is the second part of a three-part story. Read part one about the hardships Yoon Ha experienced growing up in North Korea that led her to escape. Part three follows ...
Yoon Ha resettled to South Korea through LiNK’s network about a year ago. She recently shared her story with us. This is part one of three. Continue to part two. When I...
“When I was young, my mom took me to go see a fortune teller. The fortune teller stared quite forcefully into my eyes, then said that she couldn’t see me—th...
Meet Charles – A North Korean Living in the United States
November 21, 2016
Charles escaped from North Korea and made the dangerous journey through China without the help of a rescue network. We met Charles after he resettled in the United States...
When I started living with the Chinese man I was sold to, I thought of escaping after six months. I just did what the Chinese man wanted without thinking about birth-cont...
After I finally got picked up by the broker, we got onto a bus. The bus got stopped by Chinese police twice and every time the police came aboard I pretended to be asleep...
I didn’t have a dream for my future when I was a child because my family was just trying to survive. My dad ran a farm, but one day the regime took all of his property....
On Song lived a good childhood in an upper-class family, attending special schools reserved for people of her social class and nurturing dreams of becoming a doctor or sc...
Though Moo Chan remembers a good, plentiful childhood in North Korea, things became difficult as he grew up. He never had proper government-given work and had to make end...
In most societies, people think that having a large HD-TV is a sign of wealth and is highly desired. This is not the case in North Korea. In Jo Il’s hometown, and other...
Jae Jin’s small family always struggled in North Korea. He remembers vividly climbing pine trees when he was young to pick pine nuts and only returning with 10 or so wh...
Byung Hoon remembers life being good when he was younger—though food was never abundant, it was also never lacking—but as the years passed, he started to notice that ...
Yoo Ri has a good-natured, kind face and smiles easily, but she has had to hide her pain and sadness for many years. Both of her parents died when she was a child so she,...
Jong Hyuk left North Korea with his family to find a better life, but he never planned on it being permanent. He had friends and extended family that he didn’t want to ...
Growing up, Sang Hoon didn’t think the outside world was all bad. He saw U.S. aid coming into North Korea and, contrary to what the regime said, he heard that South Kor...
Jin Kyung escaped North Korea after experiencing her own modern-day Cinderella story. Her parents divorced when she was still young, and for a short time she lived comfor...
Min Hyuk has lived alone for nearly his entire life. He grew up in a fatherless home, having been told that his father passed away when he was young. Around age 7 or 8, h...
She first escaped to China by herself at the young age of 20 with the initial purpose of earning some money for her family, but also to see something beyond her current w...
Jae Chul had a fairly comfortable life when he was young. He never went hungry and he always looked forward to school. For him, school was a place where he could spend ti...
As a young adult, she never experienced the hardships of the famine because she was in the military and was always given enough to eat. It was only after she was discharg...
Joo Ri never knew what it felt like to be envious of others as a child. Growing up in Pyongyang, daughter to a supervisor at the Ministry of Industry, she had no idea tha...
Yoon Suk has vivid, happy memories of growing up in North Korea. She was raised during a time when state-socialism was relatively functioning, and the government could pr...
Chang Soo's struggles in North Korea started toward the end of the famine and spanned for nearly two decades. He found it incredibly difficult to get enough to eat. He di...
Thinking back on her kindergarten days, Sung Joo couldn't help but to smile. She remembered how much fun she had going to school and how she used to fight with her sister...
Growing up, Hyun Mi lived a life free of worry, full of fun and laughter. However, as years passed, the onset of famine made getting through each day increasingly difficu...
Kyung Min and her family struggled in North Korea. They rarely had enough to eat and often foraged for food. Eventually, Kyung Min escaped to find work in China, but thi...
Si Yeon often dreamed of living a happy life—a life she said was impossible in North Korea. To survive, she had to engage in market activities like selling MSG, animal ...
Young Jae’s only duty growing up in North Korea was to focus on his studies. Coming from a well-to-do family, he never had to work and even received an allowance that h...
Sold as a bride to a Chinese man after months of resisting and being held against her will, Min Hee faced many difficulties because of the language barrier....
In her region, women weren’t allowed to wear shorts or earrings until just a few years ago. Things like this and the encouragement of her family led to her eventual esc...
Ji Young set out for China with high hopes of working and making money only to learn soon after arriving that the woman who had given her food had arranged for her to be ...
Prior to her escape, Nae Rae lived a relatively comfortably life in North Korea. Although she was neither hungry nor faced with hardship, she feared that she would be una...
When she was 9 years old, Haejin’s family home burned down. With nowhere to live, they were forced to live a nomadic lifestyle, staying with different families....
Marie escaped North Korea and found herself hiding in China, still not quite free. She connected with LiNK and made the choice to resettle in the United States....
Though he experienced extreme oppression, hunger, and isolation from the outside world, he was not motivated to leave the country until he married and had his first son. ...
In North Korea, Bo Ram was sent to a gymnastics school when she was eight years old. Students were made to do vigorous exercise in spite of the lack of proper nutrition o...
Hardened by the imprisonment of her husband and a famine that left her family starving in the 1990’s, when Sun Young one day found that she had unknowingly crossed the ...
As one of our older clients coming through the underground to freedom, it is incredibly inspiring to see the optimism and hope that Dae Jung has for the future....
Brian lived a charmed life in North Korea- loving family, university education, and a full stomach, but life became increasingly hard for his family....
Yae Jin was able to find true love in China. She was sold to her husband's family, but unlike the other husbands, he was kind and affectionate to her....
