Park Yeon-mi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yeonmi Park - Atlas Network Liberty Forum.jpg


Korean spelling
Hangeul 박연미
Hanja 朴 延 美
Revised
Romanization 		Bak Yeon-mi
McCune-
Reischauer 		Pak Yŏnmi

Park Yeon-mi (or Yeonmi Park ; born October 4, 1993 in Hyesan , Ryanggang-do , North Korea ) is a human rights activist who fled North Korea and fled to China in 2007 and first settled in South Korea in 2009. She comes from an educated, politically networked family who was involved in the black market after the economic collapse in the 1990s . After her father was taken to the labor camp for smuggling , the family starved. She and her relatives fled to China, where Park and her mother fell into the hands of human traffickers and fled from there to Mongolia . Today she campaigns for victims of human trafficking in China and for human rights in North Korea and the rest of the world.

Life

origin

Park's father was a member of the ruling Labor Party of Korea and an official in the Hayesan government; her mother worked as a nurse in the Korean People's Army . Her father later raised a metal smuggler in the capital, Pyongyang , where he spent most of the year while his wife and daughter stayed in Hyesan. Her family was wealthy by North Korean standards, although life became more difficult after the father's arrest. Park has an older sister.

Escape from North Korea

Park's father was arrested for smuggling and forced labor. Her views on the Kim dynasty changed when she saw an illegally imported DVD of the 1997 film Titanic , which revealed the oppressive nature of the North Korean government.

When Park's father returned, he asked his family to plan their escape to China. Park's sister Eunmi, however, traveled to China too early without informing the rest of the family. Park and her family, fearful of being punished for their sister's escape, escaped to China with the help of smugglers. In January 2008, her father died of colon cancer . In February 2009, Chinese and Korean missionaries whom she had met in the port city of Qingdao helped her to flee to Mongolia, and South Korean diplomats made it possible for her to travel to Seoul . After that escape, she became a full-time human rights activist in North Korea.

South Korea

Park Yeonmi in South Korea

Park and her mother struggled to adjust to life in South Korea, but found work as a saleswoman and waitress, respectively. Park continued her education at Dongguk University in Seoul. From 2012 to 2014 she appeared under the name Ye-ju on the talk show Now on My Way to Meet You , in which South Koreans talk about fashion and trends. In April 2014, the South Korean secret service informed her that her sister had fled to South Korea via China and Thailand. Shortly afterwards, the sisters and their mother came back together.

Young World 2014 summit in Dublin

Her speech at the “One Young World 2014” summit in Dublin made her known worldwide. In it she talked about her experiences in North Korea . The video was viewed 50 million times on YouTube and 80 million times on other social networks within two days . Her memoir Courage to Freedom: My Flight from North Korea ( In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom ) was published in September 2015. However, some North Korea experts question the accuracy of their statements.

United States

Park moved to New York City in 2014 to complete her memoir and expand her role as an activist. She also continued her studies in the fall of 2016 at Columbia University School of General Studies.

Yeonmi Park speaks at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2018

On January 1, 2017, she announced her marriage. Their son was born in March 2018.

literature

  • Yeonmi Park: Courage for Freedom: My Escape from North Korea . Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-442-31418-8 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Park Yeon-mi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Phillips: Escape from North Korea: 'How I escaped horrors of life under Kim Jong-il' . The Daily Telegraph . October 10, 2014. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Kim Jong Un doesn't like me at all," says 21-year-old defector from North Korea . Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  3. ↑ Summit Speaker - Yeonmi Park - Liberty in North Korea . Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  4. ^ Danny Hakim: The World's Dissidents Have Their Say . In: The New York Times , October 25, 2014. Retrieved September 25, 2015. 
  5. ↑ Lizzie Crocker: How 'Titanic' Helped This Brave Young Woman Escape North Korea's Totalitarian State . The Daily Beast . October 31, 2014. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
  6. ^ Maryanne Vollers: The woman who faces the wrath of North Korea . Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  7. ↑ TomoNews US: Yeonmi Park's story: Escapee from North Korea speaks out . October 21, 2014.
  8. ↑ Jay Nordlinger: Witness from Hell . November 17, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  9. ^ E. Tammy Kim: Escape From the DPRK. In: The Nation. February 11, 2016, accessed August 19, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Priyanka Gupta: Escaping North Korea: one refugee's story . Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  11. ↑ Video by Higher Perspective . Higher Perspective (facebook). March 12, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
  12. ↑ Yeonmi Park: In order to live . Penguin Publishing Group, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-698-40936-1 (English).
  13. ^ Mary Ann Jolley, The Diplomat: The Strange Tale of Yeonmi Park .
  14. ^ News School .
  15. ^ Yeon-mi Park, Maeve Shearlaw: The North Korean defector who continues to defy regime - live Q&A as it happened . The Guardian . October 29, 2014. Retrieved November 1, 2014.
  16. ↑ Who are the 100 Women 2014? . BBC. October 26, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2016.
  17. ↑ (ARCHIVE) North Korea Today: Featuring Casey and Yeonmi (ARCHIVE) . Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  18. ↑ Yeonmi & Ezekiel - Wedding - Battery Park - Love's Long Journey . Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  19. ↑ North Korea's best hope . Retrieved May 17, 2017.
  20. ↑ Priyanka Gupta: Escaping North Korea: one refugee's story . October 15, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2017. 
personal data
SURNAME Park, Yeon-mi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yeonmi, park
BRIEF DESCRIPTION North Korean human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th October 1993
PLACE OF BIRTH Hyesan , Ryanggang-do , North Korea