Interviews with Shin Dong-hyuk

According to the South Korean government, there are 5 political prison camps in operation, with an estimated 154,000 inmates incarcerated.

Unofficially, according to other sources, there are 6 prison camps and up to an estimated 200,000 inmates in these prison camps.

There is no way to fully describe what a normal day would be like in these prison camps, because the reality is so much worse.

Personally, I cannot communicate or describe the situation in these prison camps. For many people, it would be hard to describe.

The one word I would use to describe these prison camps is “hell.”

After being born and living in the prison camp, I never thought to myself or wondered why I was born, or why I had to live in this world, [or about] the situation around me. There was no curiosity on my part.

The earliest things I remember were that I saw prisoners in prison uniforms and prison officials who were carrying rifles. That was what I knew of my life. There was no curiosity, wondering or questioning my existence.

Shin Dong Hyuk is the only known person to be born in a North Korean gulag and escape to freedom. In North Korea, whole families are incarcerated for the offenses of a single family member. As many as 130,000 men, women and children are imprisoned in North Korea’s vast system of gulags.

Shin was born in 1982 in Camp 14, the product of a “reward marriage” between two prisoners. He lived with his mother until the age of 12, though they never formed a true familial bond. Shin received a basic education before being pressed into the camp’s labor force. During this time, he witnessed fellow children being beaten, executed and killed in work-related accidents.

In 1996, prison officials brought Shin to a separate detention facility where he was tortured. He had no idea why this was happening to him. Finally, the guards explained that his mother and brother had attempted to escape and they wanted more information. After being held in an underground cell for seven months, Shin was forced to attend the public execution of his mother and brother.

In 2005, Shin and another prisoner were assigned to work on a mountain. Driven by hunger, the two decided to escape over the electrified fence enclosing the camp. Shin’s leg was caught in the fence and scarred, but he managed to get through; the other prisoner was electrocuted and died. From there, Shin managed to cross the border into China where he worked as a laborer for several years until connecting with a journalist who brought him to the South Korean Embassy. From there, Shin escaped China.

Shin’s incredible story has been shared with the world in the book, Escape from Camp 14, by American journalist Blaine Harden. Since escaping, Shin has become a leading voice on North Korean human rights and the country’s gulag system, including providing testimony at the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).