The First LiNK: Documentary Night

Event: The First LiNK: Documentary Night

Date: Friday, October 19, 2018 in Hitchcock Hall

Picture this: You’re a young girl living in North Korea. Your mother leaves you, your younger sister, and your father due to financial struggles. You have to start working a very difficult job at a young age to contribute to your family’s finances. Your father then passes away when you are in your late teen years. You eventually move back with your mom who, at twenty-two, asks you to move in with a man much older than you are to lessen the financial burden. You don’t like this at all so you leave your hometown in search of a better life somewhere else. Walking for a few days, you reach one of the largest cities in North Korea. You find a lot of odd jobs that provide you the opportunity to make a little money, just barely enough to buy food for yourself. Not being able to save any money, you decide to head home where having you back was just a burden on your mother and sister. After some experiences, you can’t handle all the bad things that keep happening to you. You feel hopeless and pathetic, deciding to commit suicide. Right before you go through with it, you have the thought, “Why do I have to die? Why? I’ve not done anything wrong. I’m still only in my early twenties.”

You decide to live and make the better life you wanted for yourself; by leaving North Korea.

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This is the story of Yoon Ha, one of 939 refugee rescues with LiNK. LiNk stands for Liberty in North Korea and is an organization dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of North Korean refugees out of the country. For decades, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have risked their lives to escape the political and economic oppression they are subjected to in their home country. Even if they make it out of the country, the danger does not stop then. China is just as dangerous because the Chinese government arrests and repatriates then where they will then be subject to beatings or admitted to political imprisonment camps.

The featured documentary was called The People’s Crisis. The short film was directed and produced by the members of LiNK themselves. It was a depiction of a rescue of North Korean refugees like the one whose experience is detailed above. The documentary relates to the topic of International Affairs in that it shows the process it took for a group of individuals working across the globe in the U.S., South Korea, and Southeast Asia in coordinating overseas programs to rescue these refugees. LiNK’s mission is not only to rescue, but to change the narrative that goes along with North Korea. North korea is one of the greatest difficulties facing humanity today. By changing the image that the global society has of North Korea, LiNK is helping to make it easier for the people of North Korea to get the international support that they need.

I found the documentary night and the documentary itself to be exceptionally informative and engaging. It brought the challenge of North Korea to a more close to home space, in a place where I can help with the fundraiser being held by the event’s organizers. It’s an opportunity for the attendees, including myself, to take an active role in aiding LiNK’s mission.

Through LiNk, many North Korean refugees have successfully escaped and resettled in safer nations where they are not being subjected to political and economic oppression, but there are still many more to rescue. The People’s Crisis still continues.

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