I fled North Korea in hail of bullets – but real nightmare hadn’t begun… I was sold as sex slave & dragged back to hell

Two times, Ji Hyun Park managed to escape the brutal North Korean government by crossing the border over a frozen river while a barrage of gunshots flew at her back.

Ji told the Sun about how she was trafficked to an abusive spouse in China, where she gave birth to a boy, and how authorities tore him from her arms five years later. It is an amazing story of human tenacity.

Later, in order to save her little son, she would flee North Korea for the second time, traveling all the way back to China.

Together with another courageous defector who had saved Ji’s life and would subsequently become her husband, they traveled to the UK years later.

Ji, now 56, bravely escaped the oppressive state, which is currently ruled by despot Kim Jong-Un, after ten years of atrocities.

She described the man who bought her treating her like a “animal” and raping and beating her.

After ten years of hardship, the victorious survivor eventually made it to Manchester, where she resides with her spouse and three kids, after nearly dying multiple times.

Ji grew up in a two-room home in the North Hamgyong neighborhood of Chongjin City, where she shared a bedroom with her parents and brothers.

She was indoctrinated from birth to believe that the West and America were wicked by the regime, whose propaganda apparatus included just one TV station and one newspaper.

Ji learned that secret police were “always watching and listening” and that she should always be cautious about what she spoke out loud.

Critics and rule breakers were sent to “political prisons” where they and their families were made to spend their lives.

For years, Ji’s family was cautious to follow the regulations in North Korea since they witnessed friends and family members vanish after being imprisoned.

However, everything changed after her beloved uncle Ilsub passed away from malnutrition in 1997, during a period of harsh national rationing.

When her younger brother Jungho attempted to leave the military, his commanders brutally assaulted him in front of Ji and her father.

Her anguished father pleaded with her to try to escape and take Jungho with her.

“My younger brother was found by the soldiers, and they beat him,” she added. His face and torso are covered in blood, and they beat him in front of us till five in the morning.

“My father told me ‘you have to leave this country and save your younger brother’.”

JI’S FIRST ESCAPE

Ji and Jungho paid truck drivers in illegal booze to convey them to the Onsung border between North Korea and China in February 1998.

At two in the morning, they trekked across the icy Tumen River.

They pressed forward in desperation as North Korean soldiers opened fire on them from behind.

“We crossed the border at 2am, in February” , Ji stated.

“The North Korean soldiers were firing at us while yelling at us from behind.

“I was immobile. My legs trembled. Then, while holding my hand, my brother exclaimed, “We have to go, we have to go.”

When they reached a settlement on the other side of the border, a guy welcomed them and provided them with food.

“My brother and I ate quickly. Then he informed us that Chinese authorities were looking for these sites in the early hours of the morning,” Ji remembered.

“We were somewhat afraid at that point. His friend came to us two hours after he had gotten in touch with him.

China continues to repatriate North Koreans, according to a friend. You must wed the Chinese man, although this is quite risky.

When I initially denied it and rejected it, he became very irate and said, “I want to call the police stations and let them know you two are here.”

“I therefore agree to that marriage. I believed that I might be able to save my younger brother if I married the man.

Her brother told her not to worry about him and to go.

Ji, who was crying, added that she is “still waiting” and hoping even though she is unsure if he is still alive or not.

MARRIAGE FROM HELL

Days after fleeing, Ji was sold into marriage to a Chinese man for about 5,000 yuan, or about 500 GBP (about to 870 in today’s currency).

At the age of 29, she was raped and abused by her husband, forced to perform physical labor, and sent to live with an abusive alcoholic before becoming pregnant.

She claimed that because of the cruelty she received from her mother-in-law and husband, “We [North Koreans] are not human.”

“Our prices are different. Prices are higher for younger persons. Additionally, the cost is lower for someone who was previously married.

“We are kind of animals.”

Only when she got to her new husband’s house did Ji discover that money had changed hands.

“His mother told me, ‘I borrowed a lot of money and purchased you,’ after I visited his home. You repay this money, then.

Ji worked “all morning and until dark” in order to “pay her back.”

Miserable and “degraded”, a suicidal Ji said: “So one day I say that I want to give up my life because I didn’t save my younger brother.

“That’s my final choice. However, I had a change of heart after learning that I was expecting a child.

“My final family is this youngster. He also offered me a lot of dreams and optimism. I therefore wish to reconsider and keep my child.

Her pregnancy was long, lonely and hard. She stated: “I never went to the hospital and I never got any vitamins.”

Ji was made to labour alone for “14 hours”, but said: “When I was holding my son in my arms, you know, my happiness… that’s the moment I will never forget.

Speaking of her son, she said “it’s a trauma because his biological father was a drunk and beat me in front of him.”

Five years later, 10 plain clothed Chinese officers showed up on her doorstep at 10pm to take her away.

Without proper ID, and after neighbours had reported her to them, Ji was thrown into prison.

PRISON ABUSE

After arriving alone at a prison for North Korean defectors, Ji was ordered to strip naked in front of male guards.

She told of the horrifying reality inside, where prison officers would sexually assault the female inmates in order to find money they believed were hidden in their genitals.

The officers would even tear through their used sanitary pads to find contraband.

Ji said she knew she had to leave behind her beloved son in China, or else he would starve in North Korea, and after weeks in the prison she was repatriated back to the authoritarian regime.

Thrown into a labour camp in North Korea, Ji was worked so hard she almost died.

Her leg was so badly injured by the time they threw her out that she could see bone.

SECOND AND FINAL ESCAPE

In November 2004, as the freezing winter set in, Ji once again found herself with nowhere to go.

She explained how brokers – who forged human trafficking deals to get North Koreans into China – were even more commonplace then than when she had first escaped six years earlier.

Ji sought one out, concealing her leg wound as best she could and essentially selling herself for another marriage in China.

Alongside two other defectors – a young woman and an old man – as well as the broker himself, Ji spent a day and a half trekking through frozen mountains to get back into China.

She was soon forced to reveal her true plan to the broker who had brought her across, showing him her mangled leg and telling him she had come back to find her son.

Moved by her experiences, with sons of his own, the broker incredibly agreed to let her go.

With only one phone number etched in her memory, Ji rang her son’s grandmother’s home.

To her shock and relief, he was still living there.

Talking about that first “heart-racing” conversation with him she teared up and said: “My heart is beating quickly, and then my son is on the phone.

“He hangs up. So I called him again, often, and I say ‘Son, it’s mum’.

“And after he was really silent. And then he just said only one word, ‘mom’. And then he cried. And I cried.

“I was so sorry, because he didn’t understand the situation. He thought that his mummy abandoned him.”

Speaking about the moment they were reunited, she said: “I found my son playing outside. When I caught up to him, I was shocked.

“They did not care about my son. His skin was dirty, his clothes were dirty. He was really skinny.”

They travelled to Beijing together, heading to the South Korean embassy.

But without ID pointing to their North Korean citizenship, they couldn’t get the help they needed.

MOVE TO MONGOLIA

By Spring 2005, Ji’s son is six and the pair of them met seven other North Korean defectors at the embassy in Beiijng.

All of them decide to make the trek over to Mongolia in search of a better life – careful to try and dodge Chinese police who might try to repatriate them.

Ji and her son couldn’t run like the others – and when they reached the border, had to more slowly walk hand in hand.

Seeing what she thought was a Chinese police car, Ji panicked.

Until it reached her and she realised it was one of the men from the group of defectors she’d met in China.

He had driven back to rescue her and her little boy, and today is her husband. The pair would go on to have two children.

Ji said: “He’s my hero. And also my love.”

BACK TO BEIIJING

After some months in Mongolia, with little food or money, the three of them decided they should return to Beijing, where they soon had a baby boy.

They would live there for two years, from 2006 to 2008, making money by selling food and Korean delicacies like Kimchi at market stalls in the city.

One of Ji’s most loyal customers was an American-Korean pastor.

Ji said: “They are looking for many illegal people who live in China… all repatriated or sent back to their countries, especially North Korea.

“So I met with an American Korean pastor in my market because he was my customer. He told us he already knew that we are North Korean.”

He offered to help them leave China.

Ji said: “I was scared. But China’s political system… it was a really dangerous moment.

“So we said okay, we need your help. And then he sent us to the United Nations refugee office in Beijing.

“They ask us which country do you want to go? Me and my husband decided on England.”

Now the family of five – Kim and her husband, their two sons, 26 and 18 and daughter, 15, live in Bury in Manchester.

She is a human rights activist and a local Tory councillor-hopeful, planning to stand again in 2026.

Ji wrote a book about her harrowing and incredible journey, The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea.

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