North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Maeng Hyo-shim: A North Korean family’s escape against all odds

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

On this week’s episode, Maeng Hyo-shim, a young woman who fled North Korea in 2018, joins the podcast to share her experiences of state discrimination, systemic neglect and a violent attack against her disabled mother which led her family to escape the DPRK. Born in Hyesan in 2001, Maeng shares her memories of life growing […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast, available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at NKNews.org slash private-feed. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jacko Zwedslute, and today we have on the show a new guest, and she's a young woman who has come from North Korea. Her name is Meng Hirshim. Hirshin was born in Hesan, a city on North Korea's northern border with China,

in the years after the devastating famine of the 1990s. In 2018, she fled North Korea with her parents after a violent incident against her disabled mother and the regime's refusal to deliver justice. She now lives in South Korea, and she works to raise awareness about human rights in North Korea, testifying publicly under her real name, including at the United Nations High Commission on Human and,

rights in Seoul in June this year, just one month ago. Welcome on the podcast, Hirshim. Hello, nice video. Hello and thank you for being here. So let's start with a difficult question. Perhaps you've spoken publicly about how growing up you believe that North Korea was the best country in the world. Looking back now, what was the moment or moments that truly broke that illusion for you? You know what? My friend of father and my my grandmother passed away during the Konanen it means... That's the big famine for the arduous march, yeah.

Right, in North Korea. So North Korea is a, you know, as you know, community countries, so people used to get food from the government, but in the late in 2019s, the systems started working. The government stopped giving the food and money, and many people die of their hunger. Some of people escaped from North Korea, but many people passed away.

Yeah. In my case, I was born in 2001, so after, you know, Konanen, at the time people did not trust the government anymore. They started to say, you know, things in the market, you know what, Zhang Marding? Zhang Mada.

Yeah, the market, yeah. Yes, to live. I didn't know how, I didn't know that the other Western march really was. I went to high school in North Korea. There, I learned many lives from both. I was taught to thank to Kim families, like Kim Il-Song and Kim Jong-I and Kim Jong-I and Kim Jong-un. Yeah. I just believe they work hard for North Korean people.

But after I escaped North Korea, I realized and I learned the truth why American parents and many people die after hunger. The Kim families had enough food and lived where, but that's when I realized North Korea is not the best country in the world. So you realize that only after you already left. North Korea with your parents. Right. And you started to get information from other places. Right, right, right. So I didn't know the Kim Jong-un and his family

was luxury wearing their clothes and, you know, expense horrors. They have a lot of things, right? Right. But on the TV, they look like a simple, like kind of like, they're just like normal people showing in the TV show. Yeah. They say they're working hard for North Korean people. So I just believe in North Korea, they're just like a good leader for hers.

Right. But after his gift, you know, I saw the truth and Kim Jong-un, who stopped people in North Korea from having freedom and human rights. So, yeah. That was a difficult journey, yeah. Let's talk about people with disabilities in North Korea. Your mother contracted polio as a child and was left to paraplegic so she can't use her legs. How did that shape your family's daily life in Hesan?

You know what? Hezhan City is really close to China, so it border. But, you know, my mother had a disability after she was born so she can walk. And then it was really difficult to her and for me and for me. my father. So always just my father always carried my mother. Because as you know, North Skre didn't have a wheelchair. So my mother can't go outside by herself. Always my father carried my mother on his bag. That was like life in North Korea, my mother. So if you have like, so I mean, like, it's really dangerous to, to go to outside.

It's dangerous? Yeah, dangerous if we have disabled. So my mother's life in North Korea, it's just like stay at all times, it's just home. Stayed at home, right? Yeah, right. And what kinds of social discrimination did your mother face? And how did that affect your family's ability to receive medical care?

Unfortunately, my mother don't get any, did not get anything to the government. She could not fix her leg because she can work, right? Right. But actually, North Korean government till the world, the medical system is free, but there was not free. And if you want to go to the hospital, we have to pay to the anything. Right.

So how can you imagine if we don't have money and you can go to the hospital and nobody don't have to disabled people in North Korea. Of course, normally people also then go to the hospital. So do you think it's possible to any, give any benefits to disabled people in North Korea? No, that's not true. So there's no help for disabled people in North Korea?

Yeah, exactly, no, not at all, anything. So my mother, she didn't get anything to the government. I can imagine that in a country like North Korea where there is so much discrimination against people with disabilities that it would be difficult for your mother to find a husband, have children, start a family. Your mother, luckily, was able to do that. She met her husband, she had you. How did your parents meet each other? Yeah. Actually, one of the doctors interested in my father to my mother, so they can meet together, and then they decide to marry each other.

Because my father, I thought that at the moment she was really pretty beautiful. And then my mother also worked by herself, so she can make clothes, like uniforms, right? Korean Hanburg, something right there. She's selling the people. So my mother had a little bit rich, so she can, she have a house. And moment my father doesn't have a house. He didn't have a house, okay. Yeah, because she finished her army, soldiers.

And then my, as you know, my grandparents, they pass away. So she don't have anything. and then, like, my parents think, like, oh, we can unmarried together. Right, so your father was healthy, is healthy, and he could walk around, and your mother couldn't use her legs because of her disability, but she could work with her hands. Yeah, or she can use your hands. Now, you said that your mother was fined by the government because she couldn't work in a normal workplace tell us about that how why was she find because my mother can work in the

company for example some people can work in the company but my mother have disability so she can work so she can go to the company but so she work by herself make clothes at home yeah at home and she we also have like a convenience We're using, we're just like selling foods in home. From home, yeah, right. But, but you know what? If you live in North Korea and you must, you must work in the company, but like in the country, not like for me.

You have to work for a state-owned enterprise. Uh-huh. Okay. Right, so my mother has to, my mother have to pay in the government because she didn't work in the company, like not country. Was that a bribe or a fine? Actually, it's not bribe, but my mother have to pay to the government because... Every month?

Every month, every day, because if you, like, women in North Korea, you have to join the North Korean socialist, like women's social organization, something right then you have to work so they work like if for example they have to work in the like how do I say like a government-owned enterprise right right right but she can't so she have to pay over so there's no special system there for people like your mother to work at home right right it's not allowed okay do you think this was this only happened to your mother, or did it happen to many people in North Korea with disabilities that they had to pay a fine to the government?

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