'I escaped North Korea twice and became enslaved in China before fleeing to UK'
A North Korean defector become a slave in China after breaking out of her country TWICE before she finally managed to escape to the West and settle in the UK.
Jihyun Park, who was born into the dictatorship in 1968, fled her homeland when her uncle died of starvation in front of her and her dad fell sick in 1996.. She said his death bed plea was for her to save her younger brother by escaping North Korea.
Follow his dad's wish Ms Park set off on her first attempt to flee with her brother in the freezing cold on February 18, 1998. Halfway through their journey North Korean soldiers opened fire at the pair but they managed to make over the border into China.
Ms Park said she was forced to marry a Chinese man before she deported back to North Korea and sent to a labour camp. She bravely managed to escape one again and made her way to the UK.
Ms Park was born into the dictatorship in 1968 (Jihyun Park)Ms Park met another North Korean defector while crossing borders and the couple are now married with three children in the UK. Ms Park, who unsuccessfully stood as a Conservative candidate in the Bury local elections in 2021, said as a child the only pictures she ever say were of Kim Il-Sung - the founder of North Korea - on the wall.
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He ruled the country from 1948 until his death in 1994 and his grandson Kim Jong Un is the current North Korean dictator. Ms Park told the Daily Mail: "North Korea told us that Kim Il-Sung is our father and the Workers Korea Party is our mother."
Explaining her first escape out of North Korea she said she met her younger brother at the Chinese border four days after she left home. But when they crossed the border in the dead of the night and North Korea soldiers shouted at them before opening fire.
She said: "So my legs just were just freezing and I stopped. I couldn't walk. I was really scared this time. But my younger brother was holding my hand, "Sister, sister, wake up, wake up!". So he just bring me. Then we crossed the border."
Ms Park has no idea where her younger brother is (Jihyun Park)The two siblings sought shelter at a house in China which had a light on. The occupants gave them a warm welcome and gave them white rice, eggs and pork. Ms Park said that meal was only served on Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il's birthdays in North Korea.
After they finished eating they were warned Chinese police would search the area because of the gunfire from North Korea to alert them that someone had escaped. Ms Park tuned to a friend who lived in the Tumen area of the country who turned out to be a human trafficker. He told her she had to marry a Chinese man otherwise he would alert the authorities and both Ms Park and her brother will be sent back to North Korea.
However the man she was to marry refused to accept her younger brother which put her in a dilemma. However her sibling ordered her to go with him. That was the last time she ever saw or heard from her brother.
"My life was the same as slavery, because in North Korea we are kind of machines and parrots. The North Korean Government destroyed all our emotions," Ms Park said.
Ms Park said she was enslaved by her husband's family who told her she had to work to pay back the money used to buy her off human traffickers. She said she felt trapped and wanted to leave but fell pregnant.
Ms Park said she was enslaved by her husband's family (Jihyun Park)In 2001 China launched a campaign that offered to pay for information about North Korean defectors and Ms Park said he husband's family reported her for the financial reward. She said was first kept in a Chinese prison where only North Korean defectors were kept and strip searched by a male guard during her week at the prison. She was then sent back to North Korea where she lived on a camp and forced to work on a farm with stones and animal waste. All prisoners were left without shoes.
At one point Ms Park woke up with a swollen leg but was refused medication despite her fearing it was infected. She decided to flee the camp after fearing she could die there.
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She went to live in a village's police office and they sent her to an orphans' house where she was the only adult. Ms Park said police officers would check the condition of her leg and if she should improvement she would be sent back to the camp, so she found a human trafficker who smuggled her back into China.
Ms Park said he husband's family reported her for the financial reward (Amnesty International)She crossed the Tumen River in a taxi with the broker, another trafficked woman and an old man. Ms Park was the only passenger who could speak Chinese so she told the driver they were a family. The next days she woke to find the other trafficked woman and the old man were gone and found out the broker thanked her for saving his life by speaking Chinese to the taxi driver, not selling her and letting her find her son.
After calling him they met up and went to Beijing but their journey failed as they could not get into the South Korean embassy because the Chinese police were checking passports. They met nine North Korean defectors in front of the embassy and they were all told to go to Mongolia to find another South Korean embassy.
They stayed in the Mongolian desert for three days but could not find anyone to help them so they crossed the border back to China and stayed in Beijing for two years. They finally met someone who could help - an American Korean pastor who helped them go to the United Nations and they ended up in the UK.
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