The Defense and Foreign Policy Forum hosts the Breakfast with some amazing women who escaped North Korea and are coming to the United States to participate in the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women as they speak at the Congressional Defense and Foreign Policy Forum at 8:30 a.m. ET on March 19. One of the witnesses is a recent escapee and two are visiting the United States for the very first time to discuss the topic.
Speakers
Kim Ji-Young was born into an elite family and thus was allowed to live in Pyongyang and attend North Korea’s most prestigious university, Kim Il-Sung University. She could have become a government official just like her parents, but after Kim Il-Sung’s death and the Arduous March, she changed her perspective entirely. Ms. Kim was shocked that one of her friends who was not accepted to college because of her “bad Songbun (classification)” was better off than anyone in her family as an entrepreneur building her fortune in the market. Right after graduating from university, she decided to do the same and opened a restaurant which she ran successfully for seven years before she decided to escape.
Bae Yoo-Jin was a singer for the Ryanggang Art Group and a laborer before she joined the market system to feed her family after North Korea’s communist regime stopped providing food rations and salaries during the Arduous March. As the Jangmadang started to expand, she began trading in Chinese goods and South Korean dramas spreading South Korean culture throughout North Korea while make a handsome profit. As the suppression of South Korean culture escalated, she started distributing other goods. But, with the increasing suppression, she decided to escape, defecting to South Korea in 2019 with her family.
Kim Hang-Woon worked for a state construction company for three years and at the Hyesan Textile Mill for four years as a laborer. However, as the Arduous March began, she started to trade aluminum and other metals for rice and corn flour with the Chinese near the border. She did business with every region of North Korea, and as her business started to become profitable, many others started to follow her business model. She eventually opened a Chinese wholesale goods and food store as well while continuing her countrywide distribution business.
