Most women who escape from North Korea into China are willing to risk their lives because they hear there is big money to be made across the northern border. Mija* fled from North Korea hoping that if she worked hard for a year, she would be able to make enough money to feed her starving family and maybe even get a chance to go to South Korea.
Her dream was shattered upon arriving in China, however, where she experienced the devastating reality of being sold as a sex slave alongside other defectors.
Many women, from fifteen-year-old girls to married mothers, are sold by human traffickers into modern-day slavery.
Eunsoo* was sold to a farming village in China in her early 20s. She endured over 10 years of being treated as a sex slave before finally reaching South Korea in 2008.
Women like Mija and Eunsoo who are living in China today are painfully conflicted: should they stay in China, where they can maintain contact with their families in North Korea and help them financially? Or should they strive to relocate to South Korea to create a permanent home within their own, freer culture but risk losing all contact with their children and families?
For 18 years in a row, the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report has designated North Korea as a Tier 3 country along with China, Iran and Russia. Tier 3 countries are described as not having made significant efforts to comply with the report’s minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.
TWR Women of Hope creates and distributes an audio drama called Hidden Treasures to help women who are being hurt by sexual violence.
Join us as we pray for an end to human trafficking. Pray for the many women who are trapped, that they will escape from their bondage. Thank God that nothing can separate us from His love and mercy.
*Names have been changed for security reasons.
