Woman who escaped North Korea tells secret behind country's 'houses of torment'

10 December 2023 , 08:26

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North Korean soldiers at a guard post in the border county of Kaepoong (Image: YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images)

A woman who escaped North Korea and lived in China for seven years before moving to London has revealed the dark secrets behind the country's "houses of torment" where those who try to flee are subjected to horrific abuse.

Kim Kyu-li defected from her country and was sold to a Korean-ethnic Chinese man who helped her find a job at a restaurant near Beijing. After living in China for seven years, she then escaped to Mongolia before making her way to South Korea and eventually arriving in London in 2007.

The woman, who now lives in Britain, is trying to find her sister, Cheol-ok, who is among as many as 600 defectors who were deported from China back to North Korea two months ago. People who leave North Korea without permission are considered traitors by Kim Jong-un's regime - and are subjected to detention in labour camps once returned to the country.

People who escape North Korea without permission are considered criminals and traitors (AFP via Getty Images)

Kyu-li is now worried for her younger sister, as she has no idea where she is being held. Cheol-ok left North Korea aged 14 in 1998 and settled in a town in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin. Like her older sister, she was forced into marriage with a Chinese man that had been arranged by a human trafficker and later gave birth to a daughter.

Over the past 25 years, she came to love her family but in April this year, she was arrested for unknown reasons. Following an investigation by Seoul-based human rights organisation Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), Metro revealed that Cheol-ok was held at the Baishan City Detention Centre in Hunjiang District, in the Jilin Province.

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Kyu-li said she spoke to her sister on April 4, the day before she left home and was arrested. She said she fears she will be held in so-called "houses of torment", with no access to food, no medicines, and being subjected to forced labour.

The worried sister, whose older brother was previously subjected to "serious punishment and starvation", said: "After repatriation, Cheol-ok will face severe punishment, forced labor, lack of food, and no access to medicine when sick. Furthermore, North Korean authorities do not care whether prisoners, like my older brother, live or die in prison. He defected in 2002 and was subject to serious punishment and starvation. The location of where he is buried remains unknown."

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un visiting the country's air force (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Image)

The location of defectors as well as their identities are unknown, but it is estimated women make up more than 70 per cent of the total. Human rights organisation now fear that as many as 1,500 more people could be returned to North Korea.

While China has never seen those fleeing North Korea as "defectors", calling them "economic migrants" instead, none of the two countries confirmed knowledge of the recent deportation. Catriona Murdoch, British barrister and partner at human rights law firm Global Rights Compliance (GRC), said people who are repatriated to North Korea face "a barbaric fate" for escaping the country in the first place.

Four years ago, a woman and her six-year-old son were found starved to death in their flat after the mum defected from North Korea and made it to South Korea. Police said Kim and his 42-year-old mother, Mrs Han, were living in extreme poverty having fled the brutal regime.

Their bodies were found by the caretaker of their block of flats in the Bongcheon-dong area of Seoul, on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, but they are believed to have died two months earlier. The caretaker had gone into the flat after a plumber reported that there was a foul smell coming from inside. The family's water supply had been cut off due to unpaid bills.

A police official from the Gwanak Police Station in Seoul said: "We did not see any signs of murder or suicide [and] are waiting to get the autopsy results from the National Forensic Service."

Chiara Fiorillo