YEONMI PARK, THE GIRL WHO CONQUERED HER LIBERTY

“I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea  and that I escaped from North Korea.”

Who is Yeonmi Park?

Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist who was born in North Korea in 1993. She is  one of the courageous women who escaped North Korea in search of basic human needs and rights. She spoke at the Young World summit in Dublin and now she lives in United States.


What is her story?

Yeonmi didn’t even know what it meant to be free, when she fled from North Korea. All she knew was that she was running for her life. If she stayed behind she would die.

She tells of her escape through China’s underworld of smugglers and human traffickers, her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way and from there to South Korea and,  at last,  to freedom.

“I  wasn’t dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea. I didn’t even know what it meant to be free. All I knew was that if my family stayed behind, we would probably die—from starvation, from disease, from the inhuman conditions of a prison labor camp. The hunger had become unbearable; I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice. But there was more to our journey than our own survival. My mother and I were searching for my older sister, Eunmi, who had left for China a few days earlier and had not been heard from since.”

“In order to live”

In “In order to live”,  is  Yeonmi Park ‘s devastating autobiography, in which she yells her famine-struck childhood in North Korea and her defection.

   “I hope my book will shine a light on the darkest place in the world.”

 

CAMILLA