North Korea’s Real Human Rights Violation

By Chris Buchman, HRNK Research Intern

April 2016

​​I spent some time as a field officer with a North Korean humanitarian NGO interviewing North Korean defectors who had just completed their long and harrowing journeys from the sub-arctic climate of northeastern China to humid and sweaty Southeast Asia. I was tasked with conducting monitoring and evaluations interviews; that is, asking defectors about their lives in North Korea, under what circumstances they went to China, how they spent their time in China, and whether or not they had any issues during their escapes to Southeast Asia. Quite often, though, the defectors were so relieved to have completed the home-run stretch to a new and better life that our interviews quickly transformed into heart-to-heart discussions about their hopes, dreams, and worries for the future.

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