![\"Lee](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Lee-Tae-Won-protesting.jpg\" "\\"Lee")
\n\tStruggling to control his emotions, he explained how after nearly three years of hard work and sacrifice, he had saved enough money to hire a Chinese\u00a0\u201cagent\u201d- someone who, for the right price, will help defectors flee from North Korea. After being released from prison years earlier, Lee had married, but realizing it would be nearly impossible to escape with a family, he had left his wife and young son behind, with the plan of getting them to Seoul as soon as he acquired the funds.<\/p>\n
By October 2017, everything was in place. Sometime around the middle of that month, his family snuck out of their hometown and made their way to the Chinese border. When his wife called on 17 October from a safe house in Shenyang, China, Lee broke down and wept. It was the happiest day of his life.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, everything changed.<\/p>\n
![\"Lee](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Lee-Tae-Won-and-wife.jpeg\")
Lee Tae-Won, his wife, and son in North Korea before his escape. (Photo credit: BBC)<\/p><\/div>\n
A Life Filled with Guilt<\/strong><\/h2>\nOn 4 November while talking to his wife over the phone, something went horribly wrong. Chinese policemen raided the safe house. He doesn\u2019t remember much more about the call, but it didn\u2019t take long for him to realize his wife and son were now under Chinese custody and would almost certainly be sent back to North Korea. After hanging up, Lee collapsed. He spent the next two days crying, unable to make sense of what had happened.<\/p>\n
But he rallied, and within a few days had contacted the South Korean and Chinese governments, news outlets in the West, the BBC, CNN, Radio Free Asia, and anyone who would listen. He pleaded for someone, some organization or government, to intervene and save his family. He knew what would happen if they were repatriated to the North.<\/p>\n
After weeks of begging Chinese officials to release them, even making a direct plea to China\u2019s leader, Xi Jinping, Lee was told his wife and four-year-old son had been forcibly returned to North Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will live my entire life in guilt,\u201d he told CNN in an interview. \u201cIt hurts so much and I feel so lonely.\u201d Listening to Lee\u2019s voice crack as he recounted his story on Saturday, I felt sick. As a husband and father, it\u2019s hard to imagine what I\u2019d do in the same situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of my decision to bring them to South Korea,\u201d he told CNN, \u201cmy wife will be sent to a political prison and my son will be sent to an orphanage, if he\u2019s lucky enough to survive.\u201d Lee’s pain, sadness and anger were etched into his face when he spoke.<\/p>\n
North Korean Prisons and Abductions<\/strong><\/h2>\nThat afternoon we also heard Ji Hyeon-a, a woman who escaped from North Korea four times, only to have the Chinese repatriate her three of those times, tell her story of being a victim of a forced abortion and surviving in a North Korean prison. “Everyone was subject to harsh labor and meals were so lacking that we ate raw locust, discarded cabbage leaves and skinned frogs and rats,” she told CNN last month after attending an event at the United Nations.<\/p>\n
She now lives in Seoul and is an outspoken opponent of the North Korean regime and China’s policy of repatriating North Korean escapees, or “illegal economic migrants,” as the Chinese call them, to Kim Jong-un\u2019s gulags.<\/p>\n
![\"Speakers](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TNKR-seminar.jpeg\")
From left to right: Lee Tae-Won, Ji Hyeon-a, and Hwang Cheol at the event, Repatriations, Abductions, and Forced Abortions: Stories from North Korea, held in Seoul on January 6, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)<\/p><\/div>\n
We also listened to Hwang Cheol recount how his father, Hwang Won, was forcibly taken to North Korea, with 49 other South Koreans, when a North Korean agent hijacked a Korean Air Lines flight in 1969. <\/p>\n
Thirty-nine of the passengers and crew were eventually released, but 11 still remain in North Korea. Hwang Cheol\u2019s<\/a> father is one of them, and although Mr. Hwang is now in his late seventies, Kim Jong-un still refuses to free him.<\/p>\nThe ongoing tragedy in North Korea, and China\u2019s refusal to help stop it, is a blight on humanity. As China continues to repatriate innocent North Koreans fleeing from Kim Jong-un\u2019s terror, the world watches. \u201cThe Chinese government’s forcible repatriation of North Korean defectors is an act of murder, sending them to die,\u201d\u00a0 Lee said<\/a> at a rally held in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in November.<\/p>\nHe\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
Thanks to TNKR<\/a>, Stepping Stones<\/a>, and KAL Abductees\u2019 Repatriation Committee<\/a> for sponsoring this event and bringing awareness to the plight of North Korean refugees.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t![\"Seminar](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TNKR-seminar-group-picture.jpg\" "\\"TNKR")
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tSeminar attendees holding a banner that asks China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t![\"TNKR](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/TNKR-banner.jpg\" "\\"TNKR")
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tTNKR co-hosted the event. The organization helps NK refugees learn English and adjust to life in South Korea. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)\n\t
That afternoon we also heard Ji Hyeon-a, a woman who escaped from North Korea four times, only to have the Chinese repatriate her three of those times, tell her story of being a victim of a forced abortion and surviving in a North Korean prison. “Everyone was subject to harsh labor and meals were so lacking that we ate raw locust, discarded cabbage leaves and skinned frogs and rats,” she told CNN last month after attending an event at the United Nations.<\/p>\n
She now lives in Seoul and is an outspoken opponent of the North Korean regime and China’s policy of repatriating North Korean escapees, or “illegal economic migrants,” as the Chinese call them, to Kim Jong-un\u2019s gulags.<\/p>\n
From left to right: Lee Tae-Won, Ji Hyeon-a, and Hwang Cheol at the event, Repatriations, Abductions, and Forced Abortions: Stories from North Korea, held in Seoul on January 6, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)<\/p><\/div>\n
We also listened to Hwang Cheol recount how his father, Hwang Won, was forcibly taken to North Korea, with 49 other South Koreans, when a North Korean agent hijacked a Korean Air Lines flight in 1969. <\/p>\n
Thirty-nine of the passengers and crew were eventually released, but 11 still remain in North Korea. Hwang Cheol\u2019s<\/a> father is one of them, and although Mr. Hwang is now in his late seventies, Kim Jong-un still refuses to free him.<\/p>\n The ongoing tragedy in North Korea, and China\u2019s refusal to help stop it, is a blight on humanity. As China continues to repatriate innocent North Koreans fleeing from Kim Jong-un\u2019s terror, the world watches. \u201cThe Chinese government’s forcible repatriation of North Korean defectors is an act of murder, sending them to die,\u201d\u00a0 Lee said<\/a> at a rally held in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in November.<\/p>\n He\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Thanks to TNKR<\/a>, Stepping Stones<\/a>, and KAL Abductees\u2019 Repatriation Committee<\/a> for sponsoring this event and bringing awareness to the plight of North Korean refugees.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tSeminar attendees holding a banner that asks China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\tTNKR co-hosted the event. The organization helps NK refugees learn English and adjust to life in South Korea. (Photo courtesy of Ned Forney)\n\t