For North Korean Defectors, Freedom Brings Fear of the Unknown

ICC Note:

Voice of America’s Luis Ramirez reports from Bangkok in his last installment of a series on North Korean refugees and details the experience and fears of refugees who have been so long isolated and deceived once they find themselves in freer countries (which would be any country, in comparison).

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4/17/08 North Korea (VOA) From birth, people in North Korea are taught that the late leader Kim Il Sung and his son, current leader Kim Jong Il are near-divine, all-powerful father-like figures. A young woman who fled to Thailand via China says the lie became apparent to her from the moment she crossed the river out of the North. Life, she learned, is possible without Kim the father and Kim the son.

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A young woman tells VOA she was imprisoned several times in North Korea for trying to escape. She says hiding in Bangkok while waiting for her papers to go to the U.S. seems at times unbearable. She worries about her future, and taking care of herself in an unfamiliar, free society like that of the United States.

“I know South Koreans are very successful in other countries, even though they have not previously experienced other countries. You have to know that for us North Koreans, we have lived in a closed society with our eyes shut. So we have never learned anything about other countries,” she said.

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