Congressional Testimony on North Korea

The Defense Forum Foundation helped organize the very first hearing ever held in Congress to expose North Korean’s human rights abuses which was held in April 1999. Since that time, DFF has worked aggressively to organize numerous hearings in both the Senate and the House of Representatives on North Korea human rights issues and made it possible for many North Korean defectors to testify before the U.S. Congress. DFF President Suzanne Scholte has also personally testified before Congress on numerous occasions including the first hearing, but Scholte has always believed that eyewitness testimony from the defectors themselves was and is the most crucial testimony and always works to give these brave individuals the opportunity to speak out on these issues. Because Congress has no budget to cover airfare for witnesses, DFF has always covered the expenses for the defectors to travel to the United States to testify in Congress.

These hearings have not only led to greater awareness of the human rights situation in North Korea and facing the refugees in China, they have also led to the passage in 2004 of the North Korea Human Rights Act and the acceptance of the first asylees from North Korea. For example, the hearing DFF helped organize in the fall of 2005 which featured two North Korean defectors, who had been victims along with their daughters of trafficking, is credited with spurring action and acceptance by the United States of asylum seekers from North Korea. The two eyewitnesses, Ma Soon-hee and Cha Keyong-Sook, testified about the horrors they faced as refugees and they were joined by Kim Seung-Min, the director Free North Korea Radio, and Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea. Peters detailed how US embassies and consulate offices were not following the provisions of the North Korea Human Rights Act in their treatment of North Korean refugees.

DFF also arrange for two hearings in the Spring of 2006 to coincide with North Korea Freedom Week: the first held in the Senate was aimed to expose the illegal activities of Kim Jong-il’s regime including drug trafficking, counterfeiting, slave labor, child labor, and other schemes by the regime to raise money for Kim Jong-il. The second held in the House was aimed at exposing the abduction and POW issues – how the regime has abducted citizens from Japan, South Korea and other nations and continues to hold South Korean POWs.

The following sample testimonies are included:
1) Kim Seung-Min before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (2006) on Illegal Activities of the North Korea regime
2) Ma Soon-Hee before the House International Relations Committee on the trafficking issue (2005)
3) Cha Kyeong-Sook before the House International Relations Committee on the trafficking issue (2005)
4) DFF president’s testimony before the House International Relations Committee on North Korea Human Rights and Refugee Situation(2004)
5) DFF president’s testimony before the first hearing ever held on North Korea human rights issues to expose the political prison camps, Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1999)

Kim Seong-Min Vice Chairman of the Exile Committee for North Korea Democracy
President of Free North Korea Radio
Illegal Actions of North Korea
Testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
April 25, 2006

A territory of a nation belongs to that particular nation. But national policies and the process of enforcing the law cannot deviate from the universal ethics and governing principles. Nevertheless, North Korea, under the absolute monarchy of Jung-Il Kim followed by that of Il-Sung Kim, has rejected the universal code of conduct with a tenacious manner.Recently North Korea has been criticized as an immoral nation by the international community for violating of human rights and illegal actions. The primary reason why this serious problem has not been highlighted is because North Korea controls public speech and writing. Also, the works of international organizations such as the United Nations and “Reporters Without Borders” have been regulated by North Korean government. At this point, organizations for North Korean escapees – 8,000 defectors in North Korea, Exile Committee for North Korea Democracy, and 200,000 defectors in China and other countries – has been established in order to report this terrible situation in North Korea. This organization is working as the first step by reporting incidents regarding the violation of human rights, forgery of fake currency, production of illicit drugs and weapons of mass destruction in North Korea. I had worked as a North Korean soldier, both as a private and a lieutenant for a total of 16 years and entered South Korea in the year of 1999.

Currently I am working as the vice president of the Exile Committee for North Korea Democracy (President: Jang-Yop Hwang) and the president of Free North Korea Radio. I am here to testify about violations of human rights and illegal actions of North Korea based on the individual and group testimonies of North Korean escapees. It has already been revealed how political criminals are treated in North Korean prisons through the testimonies of escapees like Chul-Hwan Kang, Hyuk Ahn, Young-Kook Lee, and Soon-Ok Lee, who spoke at the United States Senate
Hearing.

Also, defectors who were once spies sent to South Korea like Myung-Jin Ahn confirmed a kidnapping of Japanese people by North Korean government. Marketing of weapons of mass destruction and illicit drug dealings were exposed by Dae-Geun Lee (pseudonym) and Bok-Goo Lee (pseudonym). These testimonies by North Korean individuals have been concealed by the society defined and established by North Korean illegality, or because of the movements promoting friendship between South Korea and North Korea. Now they are being presented through the activities of the organizations for North Korean civil rights. There are 2 current issues brought up by North Korean defectors. The first one is North Korean government’s violent acts of oppression against the movements working against the corrupting in North Korea. The second is the exploitation of labor in the prisons for political criminals and juvenile detention centers.

There was a recent public spectacle in Northern Hahm-Kyung Province where two persons on March 1, 2005, and one person on the following day, were executed by firing squad because they were helping North Korean escapees. August of the same year and March of this year, it was revealed to the whole world that one soldier from 27th North Korean borderline defense brigade committed aggravated battery against a female escapee until the weapon was broken. Also, it was exposed to the public that he beat a person, inspected by the security system, with a rifle.

It is unfortunate that South Korea considers the pictures and the video clips from the hidden cameras to be unreliable. However, according to the seminar on “Psychological injury and healing” that was held on April 6, 2006, by “Doctors Without Borders” and “Yonsei Medical University Behavioral Science Institute”, 87.3 percent of 200 North Korean escapees have witnessed a public execution. Like this, execution by firing squad and violence carried out against any groups and individuals opposing Kim Jung Il despotism is pervasive not only in prisons but in all regions of North Korea and is still going on even now.

In addition to this violent policy, a series of evidence and testimonies have shown the infinite exploitation of labors. The story by escapees from North Korean of forced labor camps is an example. Song-Jung Kim (pseudonym, 46 years old) who was confined in one of the camps for 14 years and finally escaped North Korea in 1999 said that “There are over 1,000 people who died in the forced labor camps, from the pain and suffering while working more than 10 hours everyday to make furniture for North Korean government officials” and “their bodies are buried in hills near the camp with other trash.”

At “Promoting Human Rights in Korea” that was held in Seoul in November, 2005, Keum-Soon Choi, an escapee, shared her story. She testified about her life in a North Korean prison where she was forced to work heavy labor while be given less than 100 corn seeds and salt soup as her daily food. She also said that in a camp located in Poong-Duk city, Northern Pyung-Ahn Province, she was to wake up at 4 a.m., have breakfast, and go out in the field to work until 10 p.m. and 12 of her fellow workers passed away in 1 year.

Compulsory labor, even for children, women, and the elders, is prevalent in the 10 prisons for political prisoners and the 20 jails, the re-education centers. It has been found that North Korean government secretly sells the products made by political prisoners as bicycles, daily necessaries, and military materials made by these workers at international level with no pay to these workers.

North Korean opium cultivation known as “white peach” also part of the slave labor is sold by government. Furthermore, every school aged child must work for at least 3 months of agriculture as slave laborer. They do not get paid for their work. They could not eat the food enough. All of it goes to the regime.

North Korean government started its secret opium cultivation in northern area of country, around the year of 1983. The government placed discharged soldiers at a large opium farm in Yun-Sah province in Northern Hwang-Hae, Boo-Ryung province in Northern Hahm-Kyung, and Jang-Jin province in Southern Hahm-Kyung. For three years, those workers were only given food to survive without getting paid and accomplished the order of the supreme commander of military, Kim Jung Il. In addition, soldiers work without payment for 10 years in coal mine in Pyung-Yang city, gold mine in Northern Pyung-Ahn province, zince mine in Northern Ham-Kyung province in order to earn cash for the regime to buy foreign goods. Some soldiers such as those in the army corps located at Geum-Gang Mountains are engaged in this ridiculous national policy from the first day they are drafted into the army.

There is a problem in the secret international sales of the valuables, opium, controlled goods produced by the forced labor. But also, this continued violation of human rights by the power of the regime in North Korea should be condemned by international community. It would not be possible to discuss all the atrocities taking place inside the iron veils of North Korea. That would take many days and nights of discussion. Even then, that would not be sufficient. Instead, I would like to conclude my remarks by telling you about writing by a teenager escapee. The teenager was 13 years old when he was forced to work on a farm under the guise of "farm support." The work on the farm was a heavy burden for this youngster. The work would have been difficult even for a grown up. One day, the teenager found intestines to a goat in the trash dumpster. They were thrown away by soldiers. After washing them twenty times or so, the stench became mild. After boiling them three times, they were somewhat edible. He shared the intestines with his sister. He stated in his writing that the goat intestines were the most delicious things in the world.

His writing made a big news in South Korea. It also exposed the dark realities of North Korea. North Korean regime forces young children to the fields under the guise of "farm support." During the Spring, children are sent to the fields for 40 days. During Autumn, they are subjected to 30 days of forced labor. Children would be planting seeds for corn and rice stocks.

In the provinces of Hamhaebuk-do and Hamkyungbuk-do, there are large scale farms for growing opium. Students in nearby schools work on the fields to gather the opium extracts and to dry opium flowers and stocks. Those activities are carried out at the directions of their teachers and the state.

It is a well known secret that hard currency collected from sales of opium produced with forced labor from children, golds mined, collected from slave labor in the Czech, Russia and counterfeit moneys which is laundered by diplomats is deposited in the banks in Macao and Switzerland. The money is a slush fund for Kim Jung Il's personal use.

Kim Jung Il holds out that he has no money to buy corns for the starving people of North Korea. At the same time, he has his money for catering to his personal needs. He has spent 900 million dollars worth of money to permanently conserve the deceased body of his father. He is spending astronomical amount of money for his nuclear program. Yet, he has no money for the people. Kim Jung-Il is no ordinary sinner that can be forgiven. He is the Satan himself. He must not be forgiven.

Once Kim Jung Il is expunged and a new democratic government is established in North Korea, the problems of human rights abuse, and other criminal activities that have been plaguing the world community will all be yesterday's news. There various means to achieving unconditional surrender from Kim Jung Il.

One of those means would be to freeze his slush funds resident in the Switzerland bank accounts. I implore the U.S. congress to investigate Kim Jung Il's accounts in the Switzerland banks and freeze those accounts.

Furthermore, there are many testimonies of escapees against North Korea including oppression and criminal acts against the population that will be revealed to the United States, Europe, United Nations, and Non-Governmental Organizations in all the countries through “White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea” being prepared by the Exile Committee for North Korea
Democracy.

I hope these activities of North Korean escapees for improvement of human rights in North Korea will be supported by the international community and expect North Korea Democracy movements will overthrow the absolute monarchy of Jung-Il Kim. Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to the United States Senate and Ms. Suzanne Scholte of the Defense Forum Foundation who always pay attention and show interest in the North Korean defectors. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Kyeong-Sook CHA
Defector from North Korea, Victim & Witness to Trafficking of North Korean Females including her own daughters in China
October 27, 2005
House Committee on International Relations: Subcommittees on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and East Asia and the Pacific

Human Trafficking, its Pain and the Current Situation

The Food Distribution Center in Pyongyang stopped distributing food at the end of June 1995. After being discharged from the Army, I worked as a district leader. I began to worry we would all die of starvation if we just waited for food distribution from the government, which never came.

I had so much to do as the district leader during the days, and had to work every night to make tofu with beans. I sold tofu to buy corns, with which I fed my children. Sometimes, I went up the hills around Pyongyang and picked wild grasses to augment our corn meals.

In May 1996, my son came back from school complaining he could not see clearly. He lied down on the floor. I ran to the local clinic for help. They told me my son had grass poisoning, but they did not have any medicine for him. I tried to clean my son’s stomach with rice water and mung-bean gruel. My son recovered in about a month, but it was a living hell. He still has scars on his arms from that sickness. I cannot recollect the time without tears. He was lucky. I heard about an old woman who lost her nose from the grass poisoning.

Only then, I realized we were living on poison like many others in the city. I could not wait to get poisoned to death. I told my oldest daughter to take an antique bowl and go to Moosan. I thought she could trade it for rice.

One month passed and I did not hear from my daughter. I was so worried I left my 12-year old son to my husband and left the house with my younger daughter to find my older daughter. I found out my daughter could not sell the antique bowl, and went to China to make money. It was in October 1997. I jumped into Tumen River. The water was bitter cold, but I did not care. I had to go to China to find my daughter. I held tight my younger daughter’s hand in the cold river.

We were in China now. We met some nice people. They took us in and fed us. They even gave us some dresses to change. I explained how my older daughter looked like. They said they never saw her. Much later, I found out all Chinese living close to the border were all involved in human trafficking. They were all crazy. They bought and sold North Korean girls with the help of North Koreans.

I was desperate to find my daughter, but I ran into a dead end. I could not turn around and go home… I went from village to village looking for my daughter. I was hired as a maid in Hwa Ryong City. I thought I was hired as a maid, but when I got to the house where I was supposed to work as a maid, there were five North Korean girls in that household.

The beast in that household slept with this and that girl every night right next to his wife. There was a 16-year old girl who resisted the rape. The beast put a wrench into her private part. Blood poured out of that little girl’s private part down to her legs. I could not watch, but this kind of barbaric atrocity happened almost everyday.

After a week, I went out to get some groceries. When I came back, my younger daughter was not home. The beast said he did not know where my daughter was. Now I lost both my daughters! I went from house to house in Hwa Ryong City asking about my two daughters…I went to Yenji…I went to Ryong Jeong….Nobody knew or saw my daughters. Everybody eventually found out everything that happened in China. My daughter was sold by the Beast to somewhere in Heilong Jiang. I learned about it much later.

I cried everyday. A Korean-Chinese man approached me. He suggested that he would buy back my daughter if I worked for him at his house. I had no choice. He bought back my daughter for 4,000 Yuan ($400), and we worked for him as servants at his house. We worked on his farm during the day, and slept in cow’s stable at night. We literally lived like animals and lived with animals. I was happy, though, that I want able to be with my daughter.

The man was 10 years younger than I was at the time. He became my master and husband eventually. He ordered me to cultivate a mountainside into a farmland, approx. 5,000 Pyung (about 3 acres). He did not work, but drank everyday. When he got drunk, he beat us. He wanted to fight with me. He would say, “I will sleep with your daughter if I win. I will sleep with you if you win.” He turned into a beast and did horrible things. He would try to bite off my nipple. I wanted to hang myself so many times if it were not for my daughter.

One day in May 1999, I was watching TV after a long day at the farm. Several ruffians came and tried to take us. We fought back like mad, and a few people in the village came to help. We escaped at the time, but eventually were kidnapped by the human traffickers two months later on July 2, around 11:00 at night. We tried to escape through the window, but they pushed a dagger into my breast. I was more horrified than in pain. I knew I was going to be sold again. We were taken to a market place in Hwa Rong City, and were sold to some place in Inner Mongolia for 10,000 Yuan ($1,200). I wanted to die. They did not care. When we arrived at Bok Dong in Hwa Ryong City, there were some gangsters waiting to snatch us. A fight broke out between them. We ran away. They all came after us. Someone called the Chinese police. The police took us to a detention center, and sent us back to North Korea on August 10, 1999, and were promptly taken to the Moon San detention center of the National Security Bureau.

There were ten women prisoners in the cell, and all of us had to take off our clothes, stark naked. We had to take off brassieres and panties. We were ordered to lift our arms sideways. We were ordered to stand up and sit down sixty times. They made us do that to get everything out supposedly hidden inside the body. They searched our hairs. They took some women and made them shake their breasts.

There was a pregnant woman among us. They said she was pregnant with a Chinese seed, and kicked the pregnant woman in the stomach with their feet. Another woman was holding a two-month old baby. They said the baby was also a Chinese seed, and beat him on the head with a book. Everybody screamed.

My daughter and I wore blue jeans at the time. They said the blue jeans were from the Yankees, and confiscated them. We were taken only in underwear to the so-called Discipline Center of the Security Bureau in Moo San City. Our daily meals there were composed of rotten flour paste in a pumpkin soup. We were forced into hard labor during the day, and were drilled as in the military in the evening. We had to fight off fleas, ticks, and bugs in the bed every night.

On August 14, 1999, I escaped from the camp when the guards were not looking. I had to run and walk 15 miles through the mountains on my bloated legs. I came back to Tumen River, and jumped into the river. It was rainy season, and the river was high. I was floating in the river, and lost consciousness. When I came back to, I found myself in a strange house. One old Korean-Chinese woman was looking down at me.

She told me that a Korean-Chinese youth saw a body floating in the river. He pulled the body out of the river, and it was me. I escaped from North Korea again, but I did not know where my older daughter was. My younger daughter was still back in the camp. I wanted to die thinking about them….I did not want to live.

I heard much later that my younger brother escaped from North Korea in August 1999 looking for his sister in China. He was arrested by the North Korean security agents, and was taken back to North Korea. They found out my brother met with South Koreans in China. He was charged as a political criminal for that and taken to somewhere nobody knows where. My daughter left behind was also beaten up severely when they found out I escaped.

My eighteen-year old daughter miraculously found me in Ryong Jeong City. She escaped again, crossed the Tumen River again, was taken to the human traffickers again, from Toh Moon to Dan Dong, from Dan Dong to Shen Yang, and then to some other places. She went through all that to find her mother. I despair even now when I think about what she went through to find me.

I will never forget July 25th. On that day, we were repatriated again and taken directly to Chong Jin Detention Center. We felt as if we were dead. We were taken to a cell full of fleas, ticks and bugs. Ticks were killing us. They were in my navel, they were in between my fingers, they were in my ears, and they were all over me. When I woke up in the morning, several ticks fell off my body. They were as big as peas!

I guess all detention centers were the same, but the Chong Jin camp was where every prisoner was to die. We tried to sleep hanging on the windows like bats, but there were mosquitoes at the window. We were there only one month, but we saw things that we could not believe with our own eyes. One pregnant woman gave an early birth to a baby after only 8 months. The baby was wrapped in a blanket and was thrown out on the cold concrete floor. The baby was crying, and the mother was taken by the guards to somewhere. One woman got syphilis in China. Her inside had to be cleaned everyday with salt water.

On August 30th, we were being taken to the Security Bureau in Pyongyang. While the guards were dozing off, we escaped again. We spent two months at Chong Jin Railroad Station as adult “Kt-Che-Bees(street beggars).” We crossed Tumen River again on October 20, 2000. We met this guy, Taek, in Seung Sun Village of Hwa Ryong City. We lived in a cave in the cliff, and did whatever Taek ordered us to do. He wanted pumpkin seeds everyday, and we gave him pumpkin seeds everyday. One day, Taek told us we had to move to San Dong Province. We thought we were being sold again. We felt hopeless.

The Han Race in San Dong Province did not understand a Korean word. We boarded a train, and the train stopped at Cho Yang Chun Station. Fight broke out among the Hans, and we jumped off the train. We went back to Ryong Jeong City, now familiar to us. We stayed in Ryong Jeong for a while, and then moved to Kyo Joo City, where I got a job as manager at a Karaoke place. I was paid a salary there.

One day, five North Korean girls came to the Karaoke place, sold by human traffickers. They looked like my daughters. They were abused sexually everyday by the customers. I showed them the way how to get away from the place. On the day they escaped from the place, I placed an ad in the local paper. “Mother Cha Kyeong Sook is looking for her daughter!” In the ad, I left a short address where we could be reached.

Two months later, the miracle happened. My older daughter showed up. I did not know whether I was happy or sad at the sight of my daughter. My whole body began to tremble. I could not believe that three of us were finally together under the same roof. I cried. I cried to wash away all my pains, all my sorrows, and all the shame that I had to go through. I cried with my daughters. We will never part again! We will die together!

I could not cry forever with my daughters. I crossed Tumen River again, this time back to North Korea. I had to bring my son out this time. I brought my son out on March 6, 2003. My husband died already. I found my son at the No. 9 Orphanage in Pyongyang City. I did not cry when I found my son. I cried enough already with my daughters.

Six years. Six short years, or six long years. I became an old woman in that six years. My hairs turned gray. I left my six years of pain in China, and came to South Korea with my three children on June 10, 2003.

I feel sorry to my dead husband writing this story. You were the only husband to me. I was raped and abused by so many devils, and beg of you to forgive me. I had to live to save our children, but I cannot face my children with my eyes looking at them straight.

If I ever see my husband in the other side, I will kneel in front of him. I want to be his wife again. I want to pray for so many girls who suffered and wasted their lives in China and other countries.

Mrs. Soon-Hee MA
North Korean Defector, Victim & Witness to Trafficking of North Korean
Females including her own daughters in China
October 27, 2005
House Committee on International Relations: Subcommittees on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and East Asia and the Pacific

In 1998, the economy in North Korea was deteriorating every day, and there was no exception for Moosan, where I lived.

The small amount of ration we had been given was no longer available, and people were wandering about in the mountains, fields, and farms to find anything to eat. The number of people dying of starvation increased daily, and dead bodies were abandoned for hours, covered with rags, before they were taken away off streets, stations and inside trains. Residential houses had not seen any lights due to the electricity shortage. The shift production system for factories was only in words, and the factories were practically closed. Workers were more occupied with collecting scrap iron so that they could exchange it for flour from China.

The mountains and fields were running out of grassroots for food. People had to walk miles to the farming areas to find food because the trains were no longer running. If it could be exchanged for food, people were willing to sell just about anything, whether it was personal valuable items, the necessities, or machine parts. Each day was an intense bruising battle. Fortunately, I worked at a noodle factory, and I was able to bring home some cereal for my three daughters and spare them from starving to death. In addition to working at my regular job, I worked on a farm and also tried to sell food from the farm. I was extremely busy all the time and could not afford the time to rest even when I got sick.

My three daughters also worked and helped out with the house work. In mid-June, my eldest daughter was given a one-week vacation from her work in order to find food.

She decided to go to China to make money. She had been told that if she worked for one week in China, she could make at least a few thousand Chinese Won.

I only found out about her plans just before she was getting ready to leave. My daughter had already made up her mind, and I had no excuse to convince her to stay. I could not tell her to stay and starve with me. I only hoped that she would come back safe after her work in China. After waiting anxiously for one week, I received a letter from my daughter.

She explained in the letter that she could not come back and asked for forgiveness for becoming a stumbling block in for the rest of the family. She asked me to consider it as if I never had her as a daughter, but if I could wait three years, she would return with money.

I could not lose my daughter just like that. She was everything in my life even through the difficult times.

Moreover, I knew I would not be able to endure the accusation, condemnation, and sneer for having a defector in the family. I was determined to keep the family together no matter what, and I decided to cross the Tumen River with my other two daughters risking our lives.

After I have made up my mind, I secretly burned our photo albums at night in a warehouse for the fear that our next door neighbor (a spy National Security and Safety Dept.) would find out. I stayed up all night writing a letter to my older sister and organizing our belongings. Easier said than done. Though we had been poor, leaving our hometown where we were born and raised and leaving our beloved brothers and sisters, not knowing when we would see each other again, was extremely difficult. I realized that it was not something I could have done if it was not for my daughter whom I loved. This is probably why many North Koreans are not able to leave their land no matter how difficult their lives are.

On June 25th at noon, we were on our way after taking a last look at our sweet home. After walking for about 70 miles, we arrived at a rural town near the bank of Tumen River. This entire experience was such a trauma for my youngest daughter, who was 18 at the time, that she experienced severe pain in her heart when we were climbing the mountain. She had to take the first aid medication our guide had brought and rest at times.

We had to hide out in the bush near the river and wait until the night. Then we started to cross the river. It was pitch-dark, and the sound of violent water gave us the creeps. We felt as if the whistle sounds of the border patrol and were afraid they were about to grab us on the back of our neck, so we walked faster and faster.

We held onto each other’s hands through the strong current, and we safely cross the river. Soaking wet, we walked into the house I had been told that my oldest daughter was staying. After changing into dry clothes in a basket prepared for people who frequently cross the river, I asked them the whereabouts about my daughter, but they had already sent her to another place knowing that we were coming.

We had no choice but to follow their directions. We climbed up a ladder to an attic through a ventilation outlet in a warehouse for food. A bed of chaff, covered with a sheet of plastic and a blanket was being used as a mattress. We noticed hair pins and books on the floor and realized that we were not the first ones staying in that room.

Food was delivered using a ladder, and during the day, they took away the ladder so that we could not leave. We were able to look out to the street and clearly hear people talking on the street. We could not move around freely the room and could not make any sounds for the fear that someone outside would notice us.

On the third day, we were told that the Chinese police were conducting a search campaign. When it was dark, we went to a nearby mountain and spent the in a shed. Around 2 AM, the owner [of the house] (He was a member of a trafficking ring that sells North Korean women to different places in downtown.) came and told us that a car was here to take us to downtown and he led us to the street.

The taxi was waiting for us with its lights turned off. Every 30 minutes, when the patrol cars passed by, we had to stop the car and hide out in a ditch. After about three hours, we arrived at our last meeting point.

We were told that from this point on we had to walk on a mountain trail for about three hours. We were also told that since it was a dangerous area, if we ran into anyone on the way we should throw a rock at the person and run. Since we might not be able to find rocks on the way, we were told to find 5-6 rocks as big as a fist and take them along.

The husband and wife who took us in the taxi (they were the younger sister of the owner of the house and her husband) drove off in an empty taxi and the owner and our family started walking on the mountain trail. We walked by potato fields and ginseng fields and climbed over the ridges. We walked over three hours with sweaty palms, anxious that someone might see us. Finally we began to see a street and met up with the taxi. The driver was pretending as if he was fixing the car. We got on the taxi and drove into Hwaryong city.

They tried to separate us by saying that if we all get into one car we might be stopped for an inspection. So my two daughters got on the taxi and left first and I was left with the owner. We were supposed to take a bus into downtown. After my daughters left, the owner started suggesting that I stay there instead of going to downtown which was more dangerous. He said that he would let me know the whereabouts of my daughters. I knew what he was trying to do. I thought to myself that nothing would be gained by getting into an argument with him, so I tried to persuade him. I begged him that if he could take me to Yenji, I would see my daughters off and then do whatever he wanted me to do.

After two hours, I was able to go to where my daughters had been sent to. Some other trafficking ring members were already there and I noticed my daughters were crying because I did not arrive for a while. When my daughters saw me they held my hands would not let go. I could not imagine what would have happened if I was not able to see them again.

The traffickers negotiated in Chinese so that we could not understand. We had a feeling that we might be separated again. One of the daughters suggested to the traffickers that if it is difficult for all three of us to stay together, at least one of the daughters should go with me and that otherwise we would not move one step.

One woman who was insisting that she wanted to take the daughters with her stepped out to make a phone call. When she returned, she promised to do as we asked and pay. The daughters I treasured were being sold off like slaves in front of my own eyes, but there was nothing I could do. I had to comfort myself thinking that it was better this way since it was safer. It was the only choice I had as a “fugitive.”

The feeling of relief, however, lasted only for a moment. They had lied to us knowing that we did not understand Chinese. They put us into two separate taxis and when the cars started going separate ways in the middle of downtown. The car with my daughters went to Heilong Jiang, and the car I was in drove off to some other place.

The mother and daughters were banging on the window and struggling to get out, but they blocked the car window and cursed at us. They did not allow us to look out the window and did not even allow us to cry. I had come to China to find one daughter but ended up losing the other two daughters in the broad day light. There were no words to express my devastation, hurt, and frustration. I wanted to kill myself, but I could not die before I had to find my daughters. Each day I waited to hear anything about my daughters with an anxious heart. My hair turn all white and eyes were so swollen that I could not even recognize myself.

One week after, my oldest daughter showed up at where I was staying. It was as if I was dreaming.

In a small apartment in Yenji we cried and cried holding each other but not able to cry out loud. My daughter blamed herself for what happened to the rest of the family. She had run away from the people who had bought her, risking her life, because she wanted go back home. She went back to the house where she had been sold off and heard there that the rest of her family had come to find her and been sold off. She begged them to send her to Yenji and found her way to where I was staying. We stayed all night talking, and she told me all about what she had gone through.

She wanted to make money and help out, but because she was sent away too far, she was not sure if she could ever go back home being so far away, so she decided to run away. She was glad that her running way led her to finding me.

I was somewhat relieved having found my oldest daughter whom I thought I would never see again. After a few days, the traffickers came looking for me because my other daughters were insisting that they bring me over. They told us that in Heilong Jiang, where my second and third daughters were sold off, there were a lot of old bachelors and they wanted me to bring my oldest daughter along with me.

They drafted up a modern version of slavery document saying that because my oldest is bringing along her mother, she would be sold for 500 Chinese Won less. The owner who had been “taking care of” our family did not object after seeing me devastated and torn when we became separated.

Out family was finally reunited after indescribable pain and hardship.

Later I heard that it was a result of my second daughter trying hard to bring me over. Her “husband” was well aware that he did not deserve a wife like her. So he was always watching her for the fear that she would run away from her. My daughter told him one day that “no matter how hard you try to keep me here, I will have to run away. I cannot live here knowing that my mother is waiting for me. So if you want to continue to live with me, you would better go find and bring my mother.”

Against his own will my second daughter’s husband found out the number for the traffickers. They told him that for 1,000 Chinese Won, they would bring me. He had to borrow money to pay them 1,000 Chinese Won, and that was how the woman came looking for me.

I cannot began to describe all the evil deeds of the traffickers, who were not afraid to separate a mother and her children, sell a parent to the children, and willing to do just about anything for money.

Most North Korean women in China are trafficked and sold off to forced marriages with men who have mental or physical disabilities or are extremely poor and cannot afford to get married.

My daughters also had to work from dawn to dusk, and it broke my heart to watch them. Moreover, there were random inspections by the police, and we never had a day with peace of mind. Fortunately, the neighbors warned us beforehand and we were able to avoid being caught. If we were caught, however, we would have had to pay several hundred Chinese Won to several thousand Chinese Won in fines.

What sustained us through the dark times, when we could not tell what the future held for us, was the news from South Korea we heard through KBS radio programs. Especially, we learned a lot about North Korea that we did not know and also realized that we had wrong information about North Korea. We also learned a lot about South Korea and America. After learning about the lives of North Korean defectors in South Korea, we tried to figure out how we would also be able to go to South Korea.

I began to think that I could not let my children continue to live in China. I wanted them to live in South Korea where they would not have to hide all the time and where they would be able to sing Korean songs as much as they wanted. This became my most important desires.

In summer 2002, after four years of being in China, the Chinese police had tightened their control over North Korean refugees, and many North Koreans were being repatriated. We were seeing the limits of what it was like constantly having to hide. Not only the North Koreans, but also the Korean-Chinese who were living with the North Koreans, would be arrested if caught by the police, and we could not delay any longer. We secretly prepared to leave and began our second adventure toward the South Korean consulate office in Beijing. However we could not help but to hesitate when we arrived at the consulate office building in Beijing. There were two police vehicles permanently stationed in front of the building. In addition, there were two armed policemen guarding the gate and two more armed policemen guarding the building entrance.

We circled around the consulate office for two days and considered our options. On the third day around noon, we held fake document envelopes in our hands and walked straight through the gate. We walked in openly with an attitude that we were supposed to be there. The policemen at the gate looked at us but did nothing. I was inside the gate when the girls got into a physical struggle with the guards at the building entrance. We pushed our way into the building, and realized that the oldest and the youngest were caught by the police and fighting to get away. My second daughter and I went outside the building to try to pull police away from the girls as we screamed. The four women were yelling and screaming, a desk was turned over and clothes were torn, but all four of us were able to make it into the building.

Everything happened so fast. The police put on the siren and round up the people around the building and started interrogating them in police vehicles, but it was already after we had stepped into the territory of South Korea that we had been dreaming about.

We found the freedom for which we were willing to risk our lives, and all four of us living happily in Seoul.

It has not been easy settling in South Korea coming from a system that has been separate and different for over 50 years, but I am only thankful for the fact that we are now legitimately South Korean citizens when we had once been in hiding with no freedom. My oldest daughter now has a husband and a son, and she work for a company. My second and the youngest are in the process of realizing their dreams as singers singing as much as they have always wanted to. My beloved two girls won the first prize for three weeks in a row on KBS’ Saturday Family Singing Contest.

All four of us sincerely hope that other defectors do not have to go through the misery we experienced day after day in China.

Moreover, we bow our heads to everyone who considers the pains of North Koreans as their own and are ever so generous with their attention and efforts for North Koreans who suffer numerous human rights violations.

Suzanne K. Scholte, President, Defense Forum Foundation
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, House International Relations Committee
April 28, 2004

Congressman James Leach, Members of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, thank you for giving me the honor of testifying before you today especially among so many distinguished panelists.

Human Rights Situation in North Korea

My involvement with this issue came as a result of hosting North Korean defectors in the United States since 1997. Since that time we have hosted defectors from every walk of life -- from the highest ranking in the regime like Hwang Jang-yop to young people who spent their youth in political prison/slave labor camps like Kang Chul Hwan. We have hosted former military and security officials and more recently because of the plight of North Korean refugees in China, former refugees including women who have been victimized by trafficking.

These defectors confirmed what we had long suspected: North Korea is a land of horrible repression and evil with no human rights or freedom for its citizens. It is a regime unlike any other in modern times for the sheer brutality of its system and for the complete control by Kim Jong-il and his party elite.

It's hard to believe that a regime that daily murders at least 42 people in the political prison camps and 391 through starvation can continue. But, we know that Kim uses at least three methods to maintain power: the political prison camp system which instills a terrible fear among the people; controlling access to any information, isolating the North Korean people from the rest of the world, and by controlling access to food, Kim Jong-il has triggered the refugee crisis by using food as a weapon against his own people.

Working with these defectors has made me believe that Kim Jong--il is the worst violator of human rights in the world today by the sheer number of people he has killed directly through his polices, his involvement in international drug trafficking, counterfeiting, abducting of South Korean and Japanese citizens, and proliferating weapons of mass destruction.

The famine triggered a refugee crisis which ironically opened the door for information to get into North Korea. North Koreans had been warned in the 1990's not to go to China -- the regime tried to convince the people that the situation was even worse in China, that China was undergoing a civil war and famine conditions existed there. But hunger drove many North Koreans over the border in search of food and what they found instead was what they described as a "paradise" in China compared to what they were enduring in their homeland.

Despite the horrible treatment of these refugees by the Chinese government which puts a price on their heads, repatriates them when they are caught, and jails people who try to help them, they keep fleeing to China. Many North Koreans are faced with a terrible choice: stay in North Korea and starve to death slowly or flee to China and take your chances becoming a slave laborer on a Chinese farm, hiding in a mountain hut from Chinese police and North Korean agents or being sold into a brothel or as a wife to a Chinese farmer.
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China has a policy of terrorizing these helpless refugees and jailing the humanitarian workers who go to China to help them. It is estimated that there are 50,000 to 350,000 of these refugees -- difficult to get a more accurate figure because China blocks access to them, even blocks the UNHCR from them. Currently, there are at least 10 humanitarian workers in jail for trying to help these refugees

US Policy Towards Refugees

And how is the United States responding to this tragedy? Our country has shut the door on these refugees again and again. On May 8, 2002, Song, Yong-Bum and Choi, Kwang-cheol, entered the American Consulate in Shenyang, China, and requested to seek political asylum in the United States. The two men had been hiding in China for some time and had the opportunity to "surf the internet" to learn more about other countries. They decided that America was the place for them with its great freedom and opportunity.

Once inside the American consulate, they asked for political asylum in the USA. Our response was to tell them to go to South Korea instead. They refused and went on a hunger strike demanding to be allowed to defect to the USA. Our embassy officials threatened to hand them over to the Chinese police. They held fast. Our embassy in Beijing dispatched a Korean American embassy staffer to Shenyang who badgered them: "Why do you want to go to the United States? They don't even speak your language. You should go to South Korea where you get automatic citizenship." They held fast. Finally, the stand-off was broken when the defectors were led to believe they were going to another city to meet UNHCR officials to apply for political asylum in the USA. When they arrived in Singapore, they were turned over to South Korean officials. They realized the U.S. officials had tricked them.

It is no coincidence that on July 4 of last year, four teenagers from North Korea entered the British consulate in Shanghai to defect to the USA. These four teenagers were being helped by Edward Kim of Orange County, editor of the Chosun Journal. Edward had arranged for people, including his own parents, to adopt these teenagers and three churches agreed to help sponsor them in America. They just had to get here.

On the birth day of our nation, Kim Guang-il, a 17 year old boy, Kim Eun-Ok a 19 year old girl, Choe Il, a 16 year old boy, and Im Eun-Hong, a 17 year old girl entered the British consulate, carrying in their hands letters to President Bush. Kim wrote, "Dear President of America: I want to live in a country where I know I am safe even in my dreams." Lim wrote: "Even though I know that someone like me couldn't mean much to you, I'm hesitantly writing you this letter because I believe I am also a creation of God. I desperately want to go to America....and watch my dreams blossom like a flower. I am currently in the British consulate. I will be awaiting your reply."

Our reply? The British informed them that there was no option to go to the U.S. The four teenagers were turned over to South Korean authorities. Fortunately, Congressman Ed Royce has launched an inquiry into this incident.

Out of frustration for the failure of the U.S. to respond to the tragic circumstances facing North Korean refugees, Senators Sam Brownback and Ted Kennedy, and Congressmen Henry Hyde proposed legislation that simply stated that for purposes of political asylum North Koreans should be assessed as North Koreans, not South Koreans.

U.S. Policy Towards North Korea

What is even more frustrating about this situation is the failure of the U.S. to get out of the pattern of nuclear blackmail so well documented by Chuck Downs in his book Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy. We continue to fall into the trap set up by the Kim Jong-il regime, which despite its cruelty is also quite cunning, in getting commitments for humanitarian aid if the regime promises not to nuke us.

This fear was prevalent in the Clinton administration which had decided not even to raise the human rights issues with North Korea, because they feared it would cause the North Korean regime not to meet for talks. Their concern, and only concern, at the time, was the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.

Unfortunately, we see that same view exist today -- that Kim Jong-il has instilled such fear that we are quick to abandon our own sense of humanity by failing to call him what he is. Remember the resounding criticism President George Bush received for lumping him in as part of the Axis of Evil and complaining how he starves his own people while he builds nuclear weapons. Bush was condemned for being undiplomatic. Ironically, the BBC aired a documentary recently on North Korea entitled "Access to Evil" and it certainly confirmed that this regime was properly labeled.

There is a pervasive view that exists among governments and scholars that we should ignore the human rights of everyone who has the misfortune of living north of the DMZ because we want to protect ourselves from the nuclear threat.

But the nuclear threat and the lack of human rights are the two sides to the same coin: they are totally related. The same regimes that abuse human rights -- the regimes that are the greatest threats, who proliferate weapons of mass destruction, who violate biological and chemical weapons treaties are also the regimes that terrorize their own people.

An Alternative Way

Despite the frustration of being involved in this issue for so many years, I have never been more enouraged than by the introduction of the North Korea Freedom and Human Rights Acts. The provisions of these Acts mirror the kinds of ideas and suggestions that activists and defectors have been promoting on behalf of the North Korean people and the North Korean refugees in China.

Raising the human rights profile is not only demanded of us for our own sense of humanity but it also is critical as a means to reach out to the North Korean people. The North Korean citizens believe that all we want to do is nuke them. They are raised to hate and fear us. Baroness Cox and Lord Alton confirmed this fear after their recent trip to North Korea: they kept hearing the same line over and over again from the North Koreans: the United States wanted to nuke North Korea. How can we ever fight that horrible lie when we do not raise the human rights issue and give it equal importance as the nuclear issue. How do we find and reach out to those dissidents within this regime -- that know in their hearts that Kim Jong-il has got to go -- when we focus on the nuclear threat and do not express how deeply concerned we are about the suffering of their countrymen.

I know of at least two defectors whose chief reason for defecting was over-hearing radio broadcasts. Getting information into North Korea is vital and the North Korea Human Rights Act specifically calls for both increaased radio broadcasts and getting radios into North Korea.

We know the horror stories about the food aid: the diversion to the party elite, the selling of international aid in other markets. The diversion is so pervasive that groups like Action Against Hunger and Doctors Without Borders have left in protest.

Its absolutely crititcal that we do not allow this regime to use food aid as a weapon against the North Korean people. Food aid must be monitored to the point of consumption. How horrible a thought that an American taxpayer believes his money is feeding a starving North Korean child when in fact its keeping in power the very man that is starving that child.

One of the single most important efforts that can be made to save lives today is to establish refugee camps. Two years ago we got letters of committment from 12 humanitarian organizations willing to help support refugee camps. There are many organizations that have left North Korea in protest that are willing to help these refugees whereever they are. This legislation could provide a huge boost to getting these camps established.

Making it easier for a North Korean to apply for asylum in the United States and establishing a First Asylum policy with our allies is also a critical way to address this issue that is encompassed in the North Korean Human Rights Act.

I am also encouraged by the fact that more and more people and organizations are raising their voices on this issue and today the North Korea Freedom Coalition sponsored a major rally on Capitol Hill with many North Korean defectors, NGO leaders, human rights organizations, Korean American pastors, and Members of the Congress to call for freedom and human rights for the North Korean people.

In conclusion, I thank the members of Congress who have joined Congressmen Leach and Faleomaevaega in sponsoring the North Korea Human Rights Act and request its quick passage in this Congress to help end the suffering of the North Korean people.

Suzanne Scholte, President, Defense Forum Foundation
Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs Hearing on Exposing North Korea's Political Prisoner Camps
April 22, 1999

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am Suzanne Scholte, President of the Defense Forum Foundation, a non-profit foundation that sponsors educational programs on defense and foreign affairs for the benefit of Senate and House staff. I will make a few brief comments to introduce the witnesses that you have invited to testify before this Subcommittee.

In recent years, we have been working to expose the North Korean political prisoner camps by arranging for survivors of these camps to meet with Congressional, government and human rights leaders. Senator Thomas, I want to let you know how grateful many people are for what you have done today by holding the first Congressional hearing that has ever been held on the political prisoner camps in North Korea. Because of what you are doing, a process has begun that will help raise awareness of these camps in the Congress, the Administration, and the media that will one day end the suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

On behalf of the estimated 400,000 North Koreans that have died in these camps, the 200,000 that are currently in prison, and the survivors of these camps who are with us this morning, I thank you. I want to also express my thanks to the Citizens Alliance to Help North Korean Political Prisoners (Seoul) and the Society to Help Returnees to North Korea (Tokyo), for providing materials on these camps for this committee and for the American public and to Mr. Won Hee Lee of the Embassy of South Korea for his assistance.

Two issues about North Korea that have received a great deal of attention -- and rightfully so -- both from the United States government and from the media have been the food situation and concerns over North Korea's nuclear capability. However, the political prisoner camps in North Korea have received little, if any, attention in our policy discussions with North Korea or in the mainstream U.S. media. Yet, these camps play an integral role in the stranglehold that the Stalinist regime of Kim Jong Il has on the people of North Korea in two ways: they destroy any resistance to his regime and they provide a cheap source of labor through human bondage.

I do not wish to diminish the horrors of man's inhumanity to man that have occurred throughout human history whether it be the slave trade, the Holocaust, Stalin's gulag, or the ethnic cleansing occurring, as we speak, in Kosovo. But, let me tell you what is happening in North Korea's political prisoner camps has got to be one of the worst examples of human rights abuses in history. What this North Korean regime has fashioned for its citizens is as horrible as any Nazi death camp or communist gulag.

Entire families are sent to these political prisoner camps if one family member is accused of a so- called crime. These crimes include listening to a foreign radio broadcast, complaining about the food situation, not properly showing respect to Kim Jong-Il or simply expressing faith in the God of Heaven. Once these innocent North Korean citizens are imprisoned, the prison guards call them 'tailless beasts' because they are no longer considered human, and they are treated accordingly.

These prisoners are subjected to forced labor to produce products to be sold to keep the North Korean regime in power. They live in squalid, cramped quarters with so little food or sleep they are like the walking dead. They are further subjected to being guinea pigs in the testing of chemical and biological weapons, medical experiments and weapons experiments. Women who arrive pregnant in the camps undergo forced abortions. Christians in the camps are rounded up monthly for beatings and executions.

It has long been suspected in the West that these camps existed, but we could not confirm the atrocities being committed in North Korea because we could not get inside North Korea.

Well, now we know because North Koreans have gotten out. We can now confirm what is going on inside these camps because of survivors like the courageous individuals that you will be hearing from this morning.

It is my fervent hope that today's Senate hearing will lead us to action: that the United States Senate will continue to focus attention on this issue, that U.S. government policy makers will include discussions of these camps in any talks on or with North Korea, and that the media will cover this story to further educate the West about these atrocities. Only then can we bring to an end the human misery and suffering in North Korea's political prisoner camps.

I am honored to introduce to you three eyewitnesses: three survivors of these camps who defected from North Korea -- each with their own unique perspective on the horrors of these camps:

Mrs. Soon-Ok Lee was imprisoned from November, 1987 until December, 1992 in Gae-chun Penitentiary. Prior to her imprisonment, Mrs. Lee was tortured for fourteen months when she refused to plead guilty to false charges that were made against her.

Myong-Chul Ahn served as a guard in the North Korean political prisoner camps for seven years from May 1987 until September 1994.

Chul-Hwan Kang was imprisoned a month before his ninth birthday because his grandfather was arrested and accused of spying. From August, 1977 through February, 1987, he was a prisoner in Yodok Concentration Camp.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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