Page 40 - NKHR Hawaii Conference 2023

PANEL DISCUSSION

DR. STEPHEN NOERPER

We’ll turn now to audience questions which were submitted at registration and during
the f rst session.

T e f rst question is for Ambassador Turner. You have spent a lot of time on these issues.
What have been the most ef ective types of strategies you’ve seen to assist defectors?

AMBASSADOR JULIE TURNER
I think this conversation about information is a really interesting one because while
North Korea feels like a “black box,” you know, as both panelists have said, there are lots
of testimonies from defectors. And while the number of defectors is going down because
of COVID-19, because of other restrictions on movement, those testimonies continue to
play an important role.

There’s also a 400-page Commission of Inquiry report that sits on my desk that I
regularly f ip through. I think the extent that we as an international community can help
amplify the voices of those survivors, the people that have managed to take the dif cult
journey to get to freedom, is really important. So we must be looking for opportunities to
give them a voice.

But sending information back to North Korea is equally important. Every single North
Korean refugee that I’ve met in my 20-plus years working on this issue has a story of
a contact that they had with foreign information, whether it be K-drama, the Voice of
America, or Korea Broadcast System (KBS) broadcasts.

A story that I’ve been telling a lot lately is about a refugee I met recently who was an
overseas worker. She said it was her South Korean hair product that she used that kind of
turned on the light bulb. She said that if she went back then she wouldn’t have a choice
on what kind of hair product she could use; who she could fall in love with; or which TV
show she could watch.

And so I think that’s another area in which continued investment and support for radio
broadcasts, human rights organizations that are sending content in on micro SD cards
is really important. Also, I just had a touching conversation with a woman who defected
just a few weeks ago when I was about to do an interview with Radio Free Asia for their
North Korea broadcast. I asked,