SOUL The home is elegantly reduced, but full of anxiety and boredom.
A North Korean defector Lee So-yeon last saw his own son 16 years ago.
She only has a few photos of her son on her cell phone, and doesn’t remember many.
– My son started drawing when he was 4 years old. Even though he didn’t have proper art supplies, he drew on paper with just a pen, Lee says.
Along with Lee by Han Jung-cheong the whole family was amazed at the boy’s skills.
– He often drew flowers and said they were gifts for mother, Lee recalls.
Lee worries that in the misery of North Korea, there was almost no room for other gifts. When they went to the market, there wasn’t enough money for the stall food the boy wanted or even for a can of drink.
– My son may remember the mother who couldn’t even buy him a drink, Lee says.
That little boy has grown into a young man whom Lee can’t even call because North Korea doesn’t allow its citizens to communicate with the outside world.
Lee would pay anything to have his son back. And he has already paid – a small fortune to the brokers who, despite the money, did not manage to organize the defection.
In this story, Lee tells how his son almost escaped and what happened to him in the end. In the photos of the story, the boy’s face has been blurred for his safety.
The Lee family’s story is not unique.
In total, more than 34,000 North Koreans have been able to escape to South Korea in recent decades. A large number of them have since tried to help their relatives out of the country as well, but escape attempts often fail.
It is more difficult to escape from North Korea today than ever before, because the country’s dictator Kim Jong-un there is tightened border control notably.
In the army, Lee learned to steal food
Lee’s own life story is a good example of why so many people are looking for a better life abroad.
In North Korea, conscription also applies to women. Lee joined the army right after high school. The memories still haunt him.
– First, the older soldiers taught the newcomers to steal so that we could survive, Lee says.
In the message corps, Lee was able to use the radio. It dawned on him that North Korea was not the best country in the world.
– I heard on radio broadcasts that in South Korea electricity works around the clock and that gas is used there, and firewood is not needed like in North Korea.
I started to wonder if it could be true, Lee says.
In 2006, Lee lived with his family near the Tumenjoki river shown in the picture, right on the surface of the Chinese border.
Life was very scarce and difficult.
– My husband ranted and was violent towards me. It felt like I was going to die either from being beaten or from starvation, Lee says.
With the help of a smuggler, Lee got across the river to China, but was caught in the border area. China returned him. Because of the defection attempt, North Korean authorities tortured and ill-treated him.
– Then when their hands started beating me, they continued to beat me with their shoes, Lee says.
Lee suffered multiple broken bones. He says he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself in his underwear, but there was a surveillance camera in the cell and the guards prevented the attempt.
The attempted defection brought Lee a two-year labor camp sentence. He says that he lost so much weight that he only weighed 38 kilos when he was released.
Lee says that after his release, the neighbors despised him and kept an eye on him.
– I realized that I have to run away again. I wanted to make money so I could feed and save my children. That’s why I sent him to kindergarten and tried to escape a second time, Lee says.
Another defection attempt in 2008 was successful.
After arriving in South Korea, Lee started to work non-stop and there was only one reason for that: to get the child to the mother.
First, he cleaned the dormitories in the morning, worked in the bookstore in the evening, and then on the night shift at Ruokakaupa.
In a month, Lee earned a good 1,300 euros and saved as much as possible.
In 2019, Lee tried to get his son to visit him. He says that he paid two smugglers a total of almost 30,000 euros, which was an extraordinary amount at the time. However, the boy was caught in China and was returned to North Korea.
After the pandemic, organizing defections has become even more expensive. Before the corona, you had to pay an average of 14,000 euros for a smuggling operation, in 2023 the price of the service will already rise to around 34,000 euros, says NKDB NGO helping defectors.
Defections are expensive because the Helpers of defectors take a big risk. According to information received from North Korea, most recently two were executed in August people smugglers and nine were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Through intermediaries, Lee heard that after being returned to North Korea, the then 17-year-old boy was brutally beaten.
The boy had explained to his interrogators that he did not intend to defect, but just wanted to get his mother back to North Korea. Lee doesn’t know if it was an emergency lie or a brainwashed truth.
Finally, the boy was taken to a prison camp. Telling about it is difficult for Lee.
Escape from North Korea has remained a dream. Nowadays, very few dare to try to escape, and almost everyone who tries gets caught.
Throughout his reign, Kim Jong-un has made defections difficult. Their number began to decrease immediately after he came to power at the end of 2011.
In reality, the change is even sharper than the statistics suggest, because South Korea specifically counts those who arrived in the country. Almost all defectors arriving in South Korea today have fled to China and years ago.
There are very few new border crossers from North Korea to China – let alone directly from North Korea to South Korea. One of them was Kim and his family, whose escape by boat reported in May.
“If the world follows, North Korea will not dare to kill my son”
Lee, 48, has built a new life for himself in South Korea. He has studied for a university degree and founded a non-governmental organization that helps other North Korean defectors.
Lee has remarried in South Korea and had another son. Pictures of the new family now decorate the living room wall.
Remembering the fate of her first son is difficult for Lee, but she wants to tell about it so that others don’t have to go through the same thing.
Lee believes that North Korea’s flagrant human rights violations can be reduced if the outside world puts pressure on the country’s leadership.
– If the world follows my son’s situation, maybe then the North Korean regime will not dare to kill him.
Lee doesn’t know what will happen to his son in the end.
– I just have to hope that he survives, Lee says.
is unable to confirm Lee’s family story from independent sources, but many of the details he tells match the experiences of other defectors.
The picture of Tumenjoki in the story was taken by Mäkeläinen in autumn 2015.