The Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) has formed a de-facto border barrier between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea since the end of the Second World War. The DPRK, a Stalinist and totalitarian country governed by the dictatorship of the Kim family, also closely polices its borders with Russia and China, and authorises its people to travel abroad only in very exceptional cases. Despite these obstacles, political problems, economic crises and food shortages have all combined to provoke an exodus of desperate North Koreans into China in search of sustenance, employment and a better life. A North Korean woman described the absolute hunger that drove her and her family to cross the border into China to me:
My family woke every morning worrying about what to eat. We usually got only a watery corn soup in a day. We sometimes had starved for three or four days. When there was nothing to eat, my sisters and I put some soil into the water and imagined that as a chicken soup and then drank it. I feared I would die of starvation.
It is estimated that there are as many as 100,000 North Koreans in China, of whom more than half are women. The journey into China is extremely perilous, and escapees are not safe once they manage to cross the border. In China they are regarded as illegal aliens, If discovered by the authorities, they will be repatriated to North Korea where they are punished by being sent to a labour camp, in effect, a concentration camp. Their illegal status in China also leaves them vulnerable to various forms of exploitations and violence.
