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By Refuge in China
North Korean mother
endured forced abortion
I am a North Korean woman refugee in
China. My name is Han Myong-suk (an alias) and I was born in
1975 in North Korea, making me 29 years old in 2005. My father
was a military officer. I finished a 2 year-course commercial
college in North Korea. I had been a factory worker for about 2
years when I defected to China for freedom and food in February
1998. On arrival in China, I was picked up by a Chinese gang of
human traffickers and sold to a Chinese farmer in Heilungjang
Province in China. I was at fifth month of pregnancy when I was
arrested at home and repatriated to North Korea by the Chinese
police in October in the same year (1998).
During detention in North Korea, I defied the order to abort the
fetus the prison authorities contemptuously called a ‘Chinese
chink’ and was badly beaten and kicked at my belly by a guard.
His name is Hwang Myong-dong. My sister was with me at that
time. Pain continued but I did not know that my unborn child was
killed by his kicking. About a week later, I was taken to a
clinic and in a most blunt manner, they extracted the dead child
from my body. The physical injuries sustained at that time were
such that I became very weak and I am no longer able to be
pregnant again.
After the abortion when I was still bleeding, I was sent to a
labor camp where I was subject to all kinds of degrading and
inhumane hard labor. I was sentenced to serve 3-year prison term
for reason of protest to the police when they killed my baby. In
the prison, I was engaged in producing uniforms and boots for
the North Korean policemen. When we walked in the vegetable farm
of the prison, we did our best to steal some vegetable leaves
and hide it in the clothes for eating them raw later. We
struggled to pick up the remains of apples eaten and thrown by
guards. The condition of the prison was such that I would have
not survived the 3-year prison term if I were not released after
one year and six months under a special amnesty. After one year
in the prison, I was sent to a tuberculosis ward of another
prison No. 20. where I saw dead prisoners almost daily.
I defected to China for the second time in March 2002 and am in
hiding suffering from health problems from the injuries
sustained in North Korea. My only hope today is to seek freedom
outside China. Please help! (This woman was helped by HHK to a
safe haven in a third country in December of 2005.)
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