The event began with a clip from "Seoul Train," an award-winning documentary about a secret underground railroad, depicting the dangerous journey of North Koreans who try to escape from North Korea into China. The clip showed a North Korean family attempting to enter a Japanese consulate in China only to be dragged from its gates by Chinese police.
Allison St. Brice '08 was particularly disturbed by the footage. "Although I did not cry I was very moved by what I saw and even angered by the fervor with which the Chinese security manhandled Han-mi [the child in the "Seoul Train" clip] and her mother," she said. "I understand that it is their job to prevent North Koreans from entering the Japanese embassy, but if I were them I would not be so passionate about such a job."
Hong mentioned that many Holocaust groups have taken up the North Korean cause because the events happening in North Korea are "very reminiscent of the Holocaust in many ways." There are not only gas chambers in North Korea, but also dozens of camps, or gulags, as satellites have proved.
Despite the fact that 6.5 million people are starving, many aid groups have elected to pull out of North Korea. They have realized that their donations to North Korea get channeled to the military instead of the people. Fewer aid groups choose to provide aid because North Korea does not allow an investigation of the money distribution.
The situation is also grim for activists trying to help the North Koreans escape to China because many activists have been arrested and executed as sex traffickers. In explaining the difficulty many face in aiding North Koreans, Hong showed secretly taped, blurry execution footage of an activist. After the showing, Hong added that the footage was banned in South Korea. "For a country that claims to be a democracy, there's a lot of censorship," he said.
Hong also expressed concerned that South Korea has been sabotaging efforts to aid North Koreans. Hong believes North Koreans were prevented from boarding a plane headed for the United States even after the refugees had received permission from California to come to the U.S. South Korea stated that it will no longer welcome refugees because of its effort to make peace and reunite with its northern counterpart. "South Korea, in the past year, has gotten mean ... to put it in a nutshell," Hong said.
Students at the lecture also learned that many North Korean women, after entering China, are captured and sold as wives on the black market. Since the refugees are not legal citizens of China, children are denied education, and the families have to live in total secrecy. "Those people who have made it to the 'free world' are not living pleasant lives," Hong said. This truth is not only limited to China. For many refugees living in the United States and South Korea, getting used to a different life without any help has become extremely difficult.
Hong said that the situation is difficult to resolve even through the United Nations because "it is unlikely that the UN will do anything." Hong also noted that "tons of UN treaties and conventions that China signed [have been violated]" but nothing has been done.
Hong also shared information about his organization, LiNK, which he started a year ago at a Korean American Students Conference at Yale. The idea to create LiNK arose after a large response came from students who had seen the same clip from "Seoul Train" and a lecture by a North Korean refugee who had defected from North Korea after teaching Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, Russian. "For [the students at the conference], to not know what was happening [to the North Koreans] was shocking," said Hong. LiNK is now an international organization with 70 chapters.
In addition to raising awareness about the refugee situation in Asia, LiNK also raises money to aid projects such as Safe Haven, an underground orphanage to help the 10,000 North Korean orphans in China. Other projects range from aiding sexually abused women refugees to helping refugees escape from North Korea and China.
One student was inspired to work even harder for the North Korean refugee cause after hearing the lecture. "Coming out of the lecture I felt more convicted of my role in helping the North Korean Refugees," said Grace Maeng '08. "No matter what preconceptions people held about North Korea before Adrian's presentation, I think everyone came out with an earnest desire for change or at least a sense that something about the North Korean regime was definitely awry, to say the least. I know many people think it is idealistic or naive of us to think we can make a difference, but change has to start somewhere. There is a Chinese proverb I have heard repeatedly throughout the week: 'Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.'"