Could you face guards who
shoot to kill?
Swim for hours
or even days in the open sea?
Or cross a vast, hostile desert?
What kind of place
can push a person
to make these extreme choices?
Some people have to
go through hell
before they can finally get free.
Located in Eastern Asia
and home to about 25 million people,
North Korea is one of the world's
more secretive countries.
After World War II,
Korea was divided into two countries.
The U.S. occupied South Korea,
and the Soviet Union
occupied North Korea.
North Korea is known
for the cult of its leaders,
developing nuclear weapons
and isolation from the rest of the world.
North Korea's leaders banned many things,
from foreign movies
to skinny jeans
and non socialist haircuts,
like mullets.
It's difficult
to travel inside the country
without permission,
and leaving is almost impossible.
Today, we'll see three stories of people
who escaped North Korea
and lived to tell the tale.
Although traveling across the border
with South Korea
may seem like the fastest way to freedom,
it's also the most dangerous.
You could get shot
when crossing the Korean
Demilitarized Zone.
If you get captured,
you could be tortured
or sentenced to life imprisonment.
Crossing the Sea of Japan
or the Yellow Sea
would be difficult
since it's almost impossible
to get on a boat.
The northern border with China
is the best option for many escapees,
including the protagonists
of our three stories.
We'll start with
Hyeonseo Lee was 17 years old
when she crossed the Yalu River
from North Korea into China in 1997.
But China is not a safe place
for North Korean defectors.
The Chinese government
always monitors
the North Korean border
and its nearby towns.
Someone reported Hyeonseo
while she was living by the border,
and the Chinese police caught her.
But she spoke Chinese so well
that they thought she was a local.
She finally moved to Shanghai,
bought a Chinese ID card
and lied to everyone around her
about her identity.
After about ten years in China,
she went to South Korea
to start a new life.
But when she found out
her family was struggling,
she went back to North Korea
and escaped again
with her mother and brother.
Her secret to surviving
was learning Chinese.
Speaking both local languages
is very helpful
when crossing borders.
And it is crucial
to keep your identity secret
and be very selective
about whom you trust.
In the 1970s,
Lucia Jang was loyal to leader Kim Il Sung,
just like any child in North Korea.
But her family was not allowed
to join the Communist Party.
They were forced to live in poverty,
hunger and shame.
Jang married an abusive partner
who sold their baby
during the North Korean famine
in the '90s.
They separated.
Then Lucia started illegally
crossing into China
to get food for her parents.
She married illegally in China,
but got deported
and sent to jail
in North Korea for three years.
After being released,
she went back to China
and became pregnant.
But she knew that China
would not recognize
her baby as a citizen.
She returned to North Korea,
but the authorities determined her
baby would be killed when it was born,
and she would be imprisoned again.
She fled to a relative's remote home
and gave birth in secret.
Later, Lucia carried her baby son
across a river into China.
Jang then discovered
an underground network
for Korean escapees
that led her to Mongolia.
Next, she found a way to South Korea
and eventually Canada.
Jang says her secret was to take it
one step at a time,
and becoming a mother gave her
a reason to keep on fighting.
Scott Kim and his mother were starving
when they first escaped
into China in 2001.
He was 17 years old.
They worked as farmers for a year
until a neighbor reported them.
The police brought them back
to North Korea.
He was sent to a detention center
and treated like an animal.
But Scott told them
he was 15 years old,
and the authorities
sent him to an orphan's medical center.
He escaped soon after that,
went back to China
and worked on a farm.
Chinese authorities
captured him a second time
while he was looking for his mother.
Back in North Korea again,
the authorities sent Scott
to a labor camp on a mountain.
He had to chop down trees for months.
He escaped, got caught again
and was sentenced
to a political prisoners camp
for the rest of his life.
A broker helped him
bribe the authorities,
and he made it back to China.
There, he worked
to pay his debt to the broker.
But Scott went back to North Korea
to take care of his sick mother.
When a broker offered
to smuggle him to South Korea,
he took the opportunity
and left his mother behind.
The night he escaped,
his mother died.
He had to choose
between going to her funeral
or continuing his journey.
Knowing that his mother would want it,
Scott continued to South Korea.
Now he owns a business there
and enjoys his freedom.
Brokers and smugglers were key
to Scott's path to freedom.
Working hard and saving money
saved his life.
Escaping North Korea
takes a lot of mental strength,
determination
and sometimes years of planning.
Sometimes you don't even need a dictator
or national borders
to become trapped like this.
There are millions of people
being abused by cults
without even realizing it.
Would you know a cult
if you saw one?
Or could that new self-help group
you joined,
be leading you down a dangerous path?
Find out here.