Yeonmi's story begins with her first steps out of North Korea on March 31, 2007. She crossed the frozen Yalu River with her mother in the dead of night, arriving in China with only a vague idea of what she would do next. . She was only thirteen years old. It's the start of a grueling, years-long journey that will take her across China, across the vast Gobi Desert, to the Mongolian border, before finally reaching South Korea by plane.
It took exceptional strength of character for Yeonmi to survive this journey. Living outside the law, she was subjected to constant abuse; famine and suicide were rarely far away. Her father crossed the border to join her, but died a few months later of untreated cancer.
“My father died without knowing that this type of democracy existed in the world,” she told Reason TV. /"He didn't even know there was so much food in the world. And if I could have collected the things that Americans throw away, I would never have escaped North Korea. That's how We were so desperate.
Yeonmi Park's story of survival captivated thousands of readers and propelled her into the global spotlight. But how true is this?
Pyongyang produced a lengthy video that attempts to discredit key elements of the story. Melodramatically, /"Park Yeon Mi, the Puppet of the Human Rights Conspiracy/" vilifies Yeonmi and her mother, accusing them of being agents of the United States. Skeptics have also emerged outside North Korea, calling her a "celebrity defector." Critics say they have found discrepancies in his life story and inaccuracies in the description of his native country.
For her part, Yeonmi insists on the truth of her story. Some details, she said, were changed to protect family members still living in North Korea. Other events, such as the sexual abuse she suffered during her defection, have been shrouded in shame. “I had a reason to hide my secret,” she told Reason TV. “I didn’t want to admit that I was raped when I was thirteen.” She attributed other inaccuracies to her poor command of the English language.
As fascinating as his story is, the stakes couldn't be higher for the community of tens of thousands of North Korean refugees around the world. Any exaggeration of the facts threatens to undermine their own accounts of widespread human rights violations and political persecution. Their cause depends on the credibility of stories that are locked away in the world's most secretive nation, making them difficult, and sometimes impossible, to verify.
“I know the truth about North Korea,” Yeonmi said. “Oppression and their tragedy. We can't silence him. »
Produced by Todd Krainin. Cameras by Josh Swain.
Runs at 29:18
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