Man Who Escaped North Korean Prison Camp Speaks Out

Shin Dong-hyuk was born inside Kaechon #14, one of the world’s harshest labor camps. His parents were North Korean prisoners, allowed to be together a few times a year as a reward for hard work. Shin was so steeped in the values of the camp that when he heard his mother and brother planning to escape, he reported them to the guards and then watched, untroubled, as they were executed. He was tortured and starved until he broke out of the camp at age 23. His reason for risking his life at the camp’s electrified fence wasn’t freedom; it was food.

Today Shin travels the world, telling his story and trying to draw attention to the estimated 200,000 other forced laborers currently languishing under the regime of Kim Jong-un. A recent book by journalist Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14(Viking), tells his story.

reason: Where were you born?

Shin Dong-hyuk: I was born in a political prison camp in North Korea. I was expected to do manual labor and to work. I had no rights. I had no concept of what human rights were. I was only destined to live and die in this prison camp.

reason: What was daily life like?

Shin: We woke up early in the morning before sunrise and we worked all day. It was manual labor all day well into night until the prison guards deemed fit for us to go to sleep. It was a process repeated day in and day out. And it was something that I thought was very natural. I never questioned or doubted what my life was all about in the prison camp.

reason: Did you know anything about the world outside the camp?

Shin: There was no way for the prisoners to know what was beyond the electrified fence, whether it was a world of prison camps or whether it was a different society. We never even thought about what was outside the prison camp fence. And the prison guards certainly didn’t teach us about what was outside the prison camp. My own mother and father never talked to me about the outside world.

reason: Who were your parents? Why were they there?

Shin: I really don’t know the answer to that. I know that my mother and father met and were quote-unquote “married” in the camp. But my guess is that they themselves were sent at a very early age to the prison camp. I could not know what their crime was and I actually had no interest in finding out what their crime was at that point in my life.

Read the rest of this interview at Reason.com