N. Korean defectors sold as brides in China end silence

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean defectors who became brides for rural Chinese men, they faced another excruciating choice when they suffered abuse: to flee to South Korea and leave their children. Women who’ve made that choice have lived with the guilt and shame for years, but some are breaking their silence and trying to get international help for their situation.

Kim Jungah, 40, chose to be trafficked because she could no longer endure poverty and malnutrition in the North.

“I thought about killing myself many times but it wasn’t easy to do it. For me, escaping from North Korea was the only way to survive,” she said.

Before she was sold to a farmer in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang who paid 20,000 yuan ($2,990), Kim said potential buyers visited her and that brokers ordered her to stand up, turn around and show her profile.

“I felt so bad about that. I felt so humiliated and I realized they didn’t see me as human being,” she said.

Kim said she was pregnant when brokers sold her to the Shenyang man, who eventually adopted her daughter.

“There aren’t any mother and daughter who are separated like us. I’m demanding a simple thing. I’m demanding the parental rights that that every couple in the world has,” she said.

KIM, 35, asked to be identified only by her surname. She allowed a stranger in China to marry her off with one of his friends, 14 years her senior, without knowing it was meant to clear the man’s debt.

“When I first saw him (my husband), he really looked like a grandpa. He was like a country man who didn’t care about his appearance at all ... How can a man in his 30s look like a grandpa? I thought he was lying about his age,” she said. “I felt really bad and cried.”

She said her husband beat her about once a month and looked down on her so much.

“He always told me he brought a beggar-like person to his house ... and threat- ened to report me to police to get me punished,” she said. “Do you know how intimidating that threat was to me?“

Kim has lost touch with her daughter and is afraid to return to China, but neither she nor other defectors in similar situations have given up. Deep shame and guilt about not seeing their children and worry about social stigma in the South kept them silent for years, but some have begun pushing publicly for international help to get back their children. Four defectors plan to travel to the United States next month to seek help from US and United Nations officials.

It will not be easy.