Torturous escape to the South
LEE Soon-sil was once a lieutenant in the Korean People’s Army in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
A nurse in the KPA’s 15th battalion, she was left almost destitute after 11 years of service and was forced to beg to survive.
She tried to defect to the South eight times before finally succeeding on her ninth attempt. Each time she was caught, she would be sent back to North Korea, to endure beatings, torture and scorn.
Showing the scars on her hand, she explained how a North Korean soldier had stabbed her with a knitting needle she had picked up in China. Opening her blouse, she pointed to another on her collar bone.
That time, she said, was when she’d been forced to stand naked as her captors beat her with rods, poured hot water over her and down her throat and pawed her.
Lee had a 2-year-old daughter, born on the streets where she had been begging. She wanted to call her Kaipo (happiness spread from the streets); instead the North Korean officials forced her to name her Chung-gun (loyalty). She was forced to watch as her mother was beaten.
The North Koreans sold them both into slavery. Lee has never seen her since.
Trafficked to China, she was helped by a Christian escape group and completed an arduous six-day trek through the Mongolian desert.
Eventually her group was stopped by a Mongolian army patrol and taken to Ulan Bator and from there released to South Korea.
In the 11 years since, Lee has become an activist, a journalist and a TV host.