Defected 2012; arrived South Korea in 2013

Kim Ji Young graduated from Kim Il Sung University and worked as an official with the People’s Committee in Yanggang Province. She later served as the manager of the Youth Street Restaurant in Pyongyang. Since arriving in South Korea in 2013, she has been active as a security lecturer, unification lecturer, and broadcaster, appearing on a wide range of media outlets including KBS Korean National Radio, TV Chosun, Korea Defense TV, Channel A, and SBS. She currently serves as President of Free North Korea Radio, where she continues to deliver outside information to North Korean listeners and raise awareness about the importance of human rights and information access in North Korea. 

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, she will speak about the impact that nearly two decades of radio broadcasting into North Korea has had on both the regime and North Korean society, particularly in relation to the people’s right to know. She will also address concerns over restrictions on press freedom under the current administration and discuss the direction of “Operation Truth” and ways to carry it out more effectively. In addition, she will present survey findings and recent analysis on how North Korean youth view the Kim Jong Un regime and North Korean society today, and how access to outside information is shaping changes in their awareness and attitudes.

Defected 1995; arrived South Korea 1995

Hu Kang Il is from Ssangam-dong, Kimchaek City, North Hamgyong Province. In North Korea, he served in the 9th Division’s civil defense unit and later worked at a shipyard and at a North Korean forestry mission in Russia. After arriving in South Korea, he worked for Korea Electric Power Corporation. In June 2015, he began serving as Chief Director of the North Korea Democratization Committee, an organization founded by the late Hwang Jang Yop. Since 2016, he has led the organization as Chairman, continuing his work in North Korean human rights advocacy and in defending the rights of North Korean defectors. 

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will speak about how South Korea’s policy approach toward North Korea has affected both North Korean defectors and the broader issue of human rights in North Korea. In particular, he will argue that one-sided conciliatory policies and distorted perceptions of the North Korean regime can lead to the neglect of the freedom and human rights of the North Korean people. He also plans to highlight the pressure and marginalization experienced by the North Korean defector community and to stress that the failure to fully address the human rights situation of North Koreans in South Korean society should be more clearly recognized by the international community, as well as by the U.S. Congress and the U.S. government. 

Defected 1999; arrived South Korea 2000 

Park Sang Hak is from Hyesan, Yanggang Province, and was born to parents who had been repatriated from abroad to North Korea. He graduated from Kim Chaek University of Technology. Shocked by the 1997 defection of former Workers’ Party Secretary Hwang Jang Yop, he fled North Korea with his father in 1999 and arrived in South Korea in August 2000. After arriving, he worked at Seoul National University’s Mobile Research Institute and at a media outlet focused on Korean unification. He later experienced the tragedy of family members who remained in North Korea being taken away by the security authorities, tortured, and either killed or disappeared. This became a turning point in his human rights activism. In 2003, he took part in establishing the Headquarters for the Movement to Dismantle North Korean Political Prison Camps and later served as Secretary General of the North Korea Democratization Movement Headquarters. Since 2004, he has continued his balloon leaflet campaigns into North Korea and has been one of the key organizational leaders involved in North Korea Freedom Week since its first year. 

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will testify that leaflet campaigns are an important channel through which North Koreans can learn about the outside world and the value of freedom. He will also explain why the North Korean regime reacts so strongly to these efforts and seeks to suppress them so aggressively, underscoring the significant impact outside information can have inside North Korean society. In addition, he will address the current restrictions on leaflet activities in South Korea and stress that efforts to defend North Koreans’ right to know and their access to information must continue under any government. 

Defected 2006; arrived South Korea 2008

Choi Jeong Hun is from Hyesan, Yanggang Province. After completing his military service in North Korea, he graduated from Kim Il Sung University of Politics and Military and served as a military officer. He later worked as a party cadre in Yanggang Province and also served as a junior Party secretary at a water and sewer construction workplace. In December 2006, he fled North Korea with his family after facing possible arrest for helping a Korean War prisoner escape. After arriving in South Korea, he served as Director of Free North Korea Radio in 2012 and has led the Free Guardians Union since 2013, working to improve human rights for the North Korean people and support the resettlement of North Korean defectors. On March 31, 2026, he was also elected Chairman of the Central Association of North Korean Defectors, an organization established to promote unity within the defector community and strengthen awareness of unification. 

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will testify about the issue of North Korean prisoners of war in connection with the war in Ukraine and the need for greater international attention and cooperation. He also plans to describe the actual living conditions and service environment of North Korean soldiers, and how troops under the Kim Jong Un regime are used as expendable tools for regime survival. In addition, he will address what North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia reveals about the regime’s military exploitation and the realities behind it, with the aim of giving the international community a clearer  understanding of both the true nature of the North Korean military and the regime itself. 

First defected 2010; arrived South Korea in 2016

JI Hannah is from Sinpa County, Yanggang Province. After graduating from senior middle school, she served for five years in an anti-aircraft artillery unit. During the “Arduous March” in 1996, she lost her husband to illness and was left to raise two young sons on her own. In order to survive, she turned to illegal cross-border trade with China, which led to repeated detentions and forced labor in North Korean labor training camps. In 2010, she fled North Korea after promising her children that she would return for them. She was arrested by Chinese police in 2011 and forcibly repatriated to North Korea. She later tried to escape again, only to be repatriated once more. After enduring extreme hunger, violence, and torture in North Korean detention and prison facilities, she finally succeeded in escaping for a third time and arrived in South Korea in 2016. At great risk to her own life, she personally returned to China to rescue her two sons in 2019.  She now lives with her two sons, who also safely escaped. She continues her advocacy on behalf of victims of forced repatriation. 

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, she will testify about the violence and inhumane treatment faced by forcibly repatriated North Koreans, especially women, in North Korean detention centers and prison camps. Drawing on her own experience, she will describe the torture, starvation, and systematic abuse she endured during repeated repatriations, as well as the brutal reality of North Korean prisons where human dignity is completely stripped away. She will also emphasize that forced repatriation is not merely a personal tragedy for defectors, but a grave international human rights issue that sends people fleeing for survival back into conditions of severe abuse and possible death. She plans to call for sustained international attention and action to protect those still at risk.

First defected in 1997; arrived South Korea 2006

Lee Sun Sil is from Pyeongsan County, North Hwanghae Province. After graduating from Wahyeon Senior Middle School in Pyeongsan, she served for approximately 11 years in the 15th Division of the North Korean Army’s Second Corps. When she was discharged during the “Arduous March,” worsening economic conditions made it impossible to survive, and she moved to Hyesan in Yanggang Province in search of a better life. However, in a society where freedom of movement did not exist, she was unable to settle there legally and spent many years wandering and living as a homeless drifter around local markets. Beginning in 1997, she made repeated attempts to escape to China, only to be forcibly repatriated multiple times. She was later trafficked in China, where she directly experienced the severe human rights abuses faced by North Korean women. After arriving in South Korea on December 28, 2006, she has worked as a broadcaster, businesswoman, and human rights activist, speaking out about the lives and rights of North Korean women.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, she will testify about the reality of human trafficking and the severe human rights abuses North Korean women face during escape and while living in China, drawing from her own personal experience. In particular, she will explain how women were driven into extreme circumstances simply to survive during the “Arduous March,” and how vulnerable they remained even after escaping North Korea. She will also speak about how North Korean women continue to seek freedom despite repression and violence, and why international protection and attention are so critical in that process.

Defected 2008; arrived in South Korea around 2008

Bae Gwang Min is from Pochon County, Yanggang Province. In North Korea, he worked as a train broadcaster and also held positions as a supervisor at a foreign currency-earning company and as a worker at a ship parts company. From an early age, his family suffered expulsion and discrimination because of their social classification background, and he had to take on the role of head of household while still very young. His family endured deep suffering from a mine accident, illness, hunger, and political persecution, and his younger brother was also made a scapegoat and taken to a political prison camp. After arriving in South Korea, he continued working on North Korean human rights issues. He later met the late Kim Seong Min, which led him to join Free North Korea Radio. He now oversees “Operation Truth,” helping deliver outside information to people inside North Korea.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will testify about the structural discrimination and oppression faced by North Korean people and the inhumane realities of life under the Kim family dictatorship, drawing from his own experience. He also plans to address current restrictions on freedom of expression and explain the surveillance, control, and citizen reporting systems used to obstruct “Operation Truth” and block outside information from reaching North Korean residents. In addition, he will urge the international community not to remain silent on North Korean human rights, but to act in stronger solidarity to defend the freedom and dignity of the North Korean people.

Defected July 2025; arrived South Korea August 2025

Yang Il Chul is from Son-gyo District in Pyongyang. After graduating from high school, he worked as a driver for a local public facilities office. He endured a difficult life amid severe economic hardship, including his parents’ divorce and the death of his mother. Over time, he also faced repeated demands for bribes from his workplace manager and from the local security authorities, which ultimately led him to decide to escape. In July 2025, he crossed out of North Korea through the Military Demarcation Line and arrived in South Korea the following month. He is currently attending a computer training academy in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, as he prepares to build a new life.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will testify about how daily life for ordinary North Koreans changed before and after the COVID period, drawing on his own recent experience. In particular, he will explain how local markets had long sustained people’s survival, but how border closures and internal travel restrictions after COVID severely disrupted market activity and undermined the livelihoods of ordinary citizens. He will also speak about how, even as the Kim Jong Un regime has intensified anti-“non-socialist” crackdowns and coercive social controls, many young North Koreans are gradually changing the way they view the regime through access to outside information. In addition, he will describe the violence and repression people face in everyday life, including public executions, surveillance, travel restrictions, and neglect in medical care, and will urge the international community to pay closer attention to the freedom and human rights of the North Korean people.

Defected 2018; arrived South Korea 2022

Choi Chun Hyok is from Kyongsong County, North Hamgyong Province. After his father passed away, he had to become the head of his household in his late teens and take responsibility for supporting his family. He left school and worked in coal mines, gold mines, and other physically demanding labor sites, and also spent a brief period in a youth shock brigade. He later turned to fishing to make a living, but as catches declined in North Korean waters, he ventured into Russian waters, where he was arrested by maritime police and imprisoned for approximately two years and one month. After completing his sentence, he was supposed to be repatriated to North Korea, but the process was delayed because of the COVID period. While facing the risk of forced repatriation, he was able to come to South Korea with the help of international human rights organizations. He now lives in Gyeonggi Province and is building a new life through self-employment.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, he will testify about the reality that North Korean fishermen and laborers are forced into dangerous work, often risking their lives simply to survive. In particular, he will explain that labor in North Korea is not a legitimate means of earning a living with fair compensation, but part of an exploitative system governed by surveillance and control. He also plans to describe how every stage of fishing work—from departure to movement to daily operations—is tightly controlled by the state. In addition, he will emphasize that outside information is not just news to North Koreans, but a source of hope that allows them to imagine a life of dignity and freedom, and he will call for continued international attention and action to protect the survival and human dignity of the North Korean people.

Defected 2015; arrived South Korea 2018

Lee Jae Hee is from Rakwon County, South Hamgyong Province. She lost both of her parents to illness at a young age, and during the “Arduous March” she also lost her siblings to hunger. After that, she moved from one relative’s home to another, helping with housework and farm labor from an early age in order to survive. After graduating from high school, she served for eight years in the 622 Youth Shock Brigade in Daehongdan County, Yanggang Province. During that time, she received little to no proper wages or food rations and was mobilized for extremely harsh labor, including road paving and power plant construction under severe conditions. Even after completing her service, she had to make a living through market trading before eventually fleeing North Korea and arriving in South Korea in 2018. She now works in South Korea and continues to build a stable new life.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, she will testify about the reality of labor exploitation inside North Korea’s youth shock brigades and how young people are mobilized in the name of loyalty to the regime, drawing on her own experience. In particular, she plans to describe how young workers are subjected to prolonged forced labor in conditions lacking even basic equipment and protective gear, and how hunger, accidents, desertion, and arrest are constant features of that system. She will also speak about the particular hardships and vulnerability faced by female brigade members, as well as how North Korean youth today view the regime and its succession plans.

Defected 2012; arrived South Korea 2013

Kim Ga Young is from Hyesan, Yanggang Province. In North Korea, she graduated from a teachers’ college and worked as a kindergarten teacher. She grew up in a relatively stable family environment and was raised to believe that loyalty to the regime was a natural goal in life. However, the death of her father, who had been a government official, and the tragic death of her mother, who had served as an administrative cadre, led her to witness the reality of the North Korean system firsthand. Her mother was subjected to prolonged detention and investigation during an inspection by the Security Command over issues related to state distribution and trade. Although the allegations were eventually cleared, her health deteriorated severely under the stress and surveillance, and she later passed away. After arriving in South Korea, she came to understand the values of freedom and equality in a new way, and she now works as a broadcaster and security lecturer.

At the 23rd North Korea Freedom Week, she will testify about how the North Korean regime systematically indoctrinates children, drawing on what she personally witnessed while working as a kindergarten teacher. She also plans to address the implications of the regime’s apparent attempt to pave the way for a fourth-generation hereditary succession through Kim Ju Ae, and to explain how North Korean society is sustained through loyalty, surveillance, and discrimination. In addition, she will speak about why the flow of outside information is so important in changing the way North Korean residents and young people think, and what that means for the next generation in particular.