The North Korean human rights crisis is largely underestimated and misunderstood due to the nation’s extreme isolationism and totalitarian control under three generations of the Kim dynasty. 

Accounts by many of the hundreds of thousands who have managed to escape North Korea have revealed atrocities. Its lack of economic development and open trade have led to state-run, global-scale operations in drug trafficking, currency counterfeiting and weapons trading. 

Following the defeat of Japan in World War II, an arbitrary line was drawn across the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel, with the U.S.S.R. occupying the north and U.S. forces occupying the south. Each of these powers installed a leader friendly to its ideology, with Kim Il-Sung (father of recently-deceased Kim Jong-Il and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-Un) assuming power in the north. 

For many years, North Korea’s abundant mineral resources, cheap labor, and substantial U.S.S.R. and Chinese backing supported a limited economy. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping’s reformist Communist Party abolished much of China's support of North Korea, including the chemical fertilizers and pesticides necessary for large-scale crop production in the nation’s otherwise challenging agricultural lands. The 1991 dissolution of the U.S.S.R. ended the other main source of support for North Korea, which lacks a diversified economy, precluding independent sustainability. 

The Kim dynasty’s ideology of juche (national self-reliance) prevented international trade or pursuit of further institutional assistance. The result was devastating food shortages in the mid-1990s, with estimates ranging from 250,000-3.5 million deaths by starvation. While human rights groups successfully lobbied for foreign aid to North Korea during those famine years, much of it allegedly was funneled to develop Kim Jong-Il’s infamous nuclear weapons stockpile.

The economic collapse led to greater reliance on North Korea's Soviet-style system of gulags for labor. An estimated 150,000-200,000 people are imprisoned, often for trivial matters, such as failure to dust the household portrait of the Dear Leader. Conditions are horrific. Prisoners are overworked to the point of exhaustion and death and physically and sexually abused. Food allotments are so meager, prisoners are reportedly forced to rely on extreme measures like filling their stomachs with tree bark and eating raw rats.

Food shortages are common across North Korea, and starvation is a primary motivation for escape. Black markets have led many North Koreans to develop a taste for free trade and personal choice. In addition, infiltration of foreign media is making many North Koreans intolerant of their dire living conditions.

Leaving is difficult. The South Korean border is manned by North Korea’s “Million Man Army” and littered with land mines. The Russian border is a mere 12-mile stretch of the deep, difficult-to-cross Tumen River. Therefore, the partially fortified 880-mile border with China is the easiest option for escaping. 

As an ally of the Kim government, China's policy is to repatriate any North Korean defectors found within its borders, which guarantees gulag imprisonment. Thus, defectors in China are forced to live in hiding, limited to illegal or undesirable employment and at risk of human trafficking and other abuses. 

The ultimate goal of most defectors is South Korea, where generous state-run programs are in place for resettlement and job training, but Chinese forces have blockaded South Korea's embassies there. In response, an underground railroad has developed to assist refugees to safe ground in other countries.

The nonprofit group Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) transports refugees to shelters in Southeast Asia and aids their resettlement in South Korea or the U.S. Founded by Yale University students in 2004, LiNK is currently headquartered in Torrance, CA, with offices in Seoul and chapters worldwide. LiNK’s mission is to redefine public perception of North Korea and help its people bring about positive change. More information can be found at libertyinnorthkorea.org.

Athens residents recently established a LiNK chapter and, in collaboration with UGA Amnesty International, will be hosting an informational event at Ciné at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13. Representatives from LiNK headquarters will show the short film Danny from North Korea—a true story based on one of their 188 rescues to date—and answer questions about the rescue process and changing North Korea from within. The event is free and open to the public.

LiNK Athens encourages participation from anyone interested. Meetings are held on the first and third Mondays of the month at 6 p.m. at Flicker Theatre & Bar. Email [email protected] with questions and stay up-to-date on events by liking LiNK Athens on Facebook.  

Secure, tax-deductible donations, directly used to rescue refugees in China, are welcomed at tinyurl.com/linkathens. The team goal of $2,500 will put one refugee on the 3,500-mile journey to freedom.