If North Korea figures in the imagination of inhabitants of the Western world at all, it is only dimly perceived and little understood. The little that most of us know is that it is a secretive country with an impoverished population, that it is governed by an ostensibly communist regime led by the autocratic Kim dynasty and is bent on developing nuclear weapons. Occasionally, we hear stories of those who have escaped its closely guarded borders. In this book, Hyun-Joo Lim provides us with a deeper understanding of living in and escaping from North Korea – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In particular, she demonstrates that North Koreans’ experiences of deprivation, human rights violations and defection are highly gendered. She lays bare the oppression and abuse suffered by North Korean women both within the DPRK and during their escape through China.

The book is based on narratives of women defectors/refugees from the DPRK resident in the UK and who left the DPRK between 2016 and 2022. Lim initially interviewed North Korean human rights activists, both male and female, through which the gendered character of human rights abuses came to the fore. She then focused her attention on North Korean women in the UK, including a minority who were engaged in activism. Lim faced numerous challenges in gaining access to this group of women and researching their lives. In a context where the DPRK’s embassy monitors the activities of defectors, most keep a low profile lest they risk harm to their families back home. Winning their trust and establishing their willingness to participate in sensitive research was by no means easy. The vulnerability of participants and their families still in the DPRK raised particular ethical concerns in safeguarding anonymity and confidentiality as well as ensuring support for those who needed it. Lim also discusses the impact on herself of hearing distressing details of women’s experiences and her sense of helplessness in the face of the suffering they described. Additionally, Lim’s South Korean background presented barriers; she may have shared a common language and ethnic heritage with her participants, but her cultural and social experience differed greatly from theirs.