(applauding)
During the famine, we had to be creative to survive.
We would pick and eat wild vegetables,
grasshoppers, and even tree bark.
One time, my younger brother
and I went 10 days without eating.
When we were starving, my body getting hot,
so I was looking for the coldest spot
where I used to sleep on a concrete floor.
All we had was cold water.
After 10 days, I didn't feel hungry anymore
because I was numb.
Dying from malnutrition was a constant threat.
As you can see right now, my hair is really black.
But when I was starving, my hair turned yellow.
I was sick and weak all the time and I had no energy.
My family convinced me to eat everything I can find.
On one occasion, my grandmother found six newborn mice
under stones from our yard.
She boiled these mice and I ate them.
I was five and a half years old.
This is just my story.
There are so many other stories like this.
In fact, millions and millions of them.
From 1990 to 1998, at least 2.5 million
North Koreans died from starvation,
diseases and hypothermia.
All caused by the policies of Kim dictatorship.
In North Korea, nobody except the government
can own the business.
Who gets food?
Decision made by the government.
Why?
Because the Soviet Union,
they supported North Korean regime with the food subsidies.
When Soviet fell apart, the food subsidies
stopped and we starved.
I was born in 1991 in North Hamgyong province
into middle class family.
I had five siblings, three brothers and two sisters.
My grandmother died in this great famine.
My oldest sister, she left to China for finding food.
In 1998, she was only 17 years old.
And after that, I have never heard from her since.
Today, from my family, only my mother
and my older sister are alive.
I don't have a picture to share with you
about all of my family members,
because it was really dangerous for us
to carry a picture with us during our journey.
All I have about my family is only memory.
My family did everything they could to survive,
but eventually my parents,
they ran out of ways to feed my family.
One day, my father crossed the border
into China to find food.
After he came back,
he got arrested by the police.
And officials from our hometown came
with wooden blocks, and then they took my mother away
after ruthlessly beating her.
They also took away everything that my parents
had purchased in China, food, clothing,
anything that didn't look North Korean.
My father was tortured severely
by the police and was forced to admit
to all the charges that they accused him of.
They beat him with a club until it broke.
He died from his wounds on a train
while he was transferred to a prison.
My father's death turned us into outcasts.
Our neighbors wouldn't allow us to stay in our home.
With nowhere to go, my mother decided to flee
to China to save me and my older sister.
The only reason I am here with you,
because my mother made that decision
and I'm very thankful for her.
It is very difficult for me to explain the sort
of torture, intimidation, and suffering
and pain we suffered in the Chinese prison
and North Korean prison.
My mother's eardrum had burst, so she cannot hear
on one side, and she's still suffering
from the aftereffects from the prison and tortures.
My mother and my older sister, the remaining sister, Jinhye,
were arrested four times in China,
and sent back to North Korea four times.
And I was sent back to North Korea twice.
I believe the Chinese government is responsible
for the inhumane treatment of North Koreans.
During our 10 years in China,
we tried very hard to survive.
Many people think that once we escape
North Korea to China, our troubles are over.
Once we go to China, our life in China is not that easy.
For more than half of my childhood, I lived in mortal fear.
We hid in the mountains.
We never stayed in one place more than one year
because of our safety.
We had to run from village to village,
because if someone found out we came from North Korea,
they will report to the police.
Chinese plainclothes officers,
they're specially trained to find North Koreans.
We were caught many times from safe houses,
on public transportation,
and official buildings.
After being caught, we were sent back to North prisons again.
Even though for North Koreans, Chinese prison is huge
and very fancy, but the conditions there are very bad.
They give us very bad food and they treat us really bad.
They have no respect for human rights at all.
In 2005, while in China, we were caught
with a Korean-American missionary, Pastor John Yoon.
We all were imprisoned in a Chinese jail
for about 15 months.
At the end of our sentences, Pastor Yoon returned to the US,
and my family sent back to North Korea.
I thought that would be our end.
We thought we would not survive anymore.
But the miracle happened after about a month later,
Pastor Yoon raised $10,000 and paid to bribe officers there,
and helped us to release in North Korea.
After we were released, we swam across
the Tumen River again, and we came to China,
and we were hiding in China again.
After about a year and a half,
the UN rescued my family, and they allowed us
to enter the United States as legal refugees.
I have been able to get my US citizenship in 2013,
and now I am considered as Korean-American.
(applauding)
Once defectors are sent back to North Korea,
intelligence agents, they sort out regular defector cases
and serious defector cases.
A regular defector case means that North Korean people,
they went to China and live in the villages only.
And without hearing any outside information,
like news or anything, or met foreign people.
Serious defector cases fall into five categories.
Number one, North Koreans who are exposed
to outside information like TV news, radio and newspaper,
North Koreans who met foreigners like Americans
and South Koreans, North Koreans who try to go
to South Korea, and North Koreans who helped
other North Korean defectors in China,
and North Korean people who became Christians.
In the more serious cases,
some North Korean people are sentenced
to political prison camps or sentenced to public execution.
Today, we face daily challenges
as we continue to adapt this new land.
We try to focus on taking care of each other.
And we're trying to study for better education
and work hard for our new resettlement.
But what keeps me up at night is the thought
of my father, my grandmother, my missing sister,
and so many others who died needlessly in North Korea.
The government decided it was better
to punish us...
us to trying to survive,
than to lose control over North Korean people.
My mother decided to come to the United States
instead of South Korea, because she wanted
to leave far away from Korea as possible.
I think she suffered too much in North Korea,
that's why she made that decision.
And this is why my sister, Jinhye and I
started an organization called NKinUSA.
We help North Korean defectors like us wanting
to escape and find freedom.
Our work has three objectives.
First, we rescue North Korean refugees
from North Korea or China to the freedom country.
Next, we are refugees, ourselves, too,
so we want to help other refugees
who are trying to resettle in the United States.
And lastly, we believe that education
about North Korea is very important,
so my sister and I travel to give our testimony,
and let people know about the situation in North Korea.
In close, as refugees,
we will not rest until the suffering
and the nightmare of everybody
from North Korea is over in North Korea.
Thank you very much.
(applauding)