A United Nations assessment in March 2013 found 16 million out of North Korea’s total population of 28 million people to be “chronically deprived of food.” According to CNN, Yoon Hee and Hyuk Kim are no strangers to North Korea’s human rights abuses.

After being abandoned by her mother, Yoon Hee recalled roaming the streets of North Korea, sleeping in crevices, and picking rice off the ground that people had dropped as a source of food. Yoon Hee had lived on the streets for years at just ten years old. She suspected she had caught typhoid fever and had freezed in the snow for two weeks and recalled her thoughts at the time: “I am going to die.” However, to her rescue, a villager who was struggling to feed her own children at the time, came over and thrusted money into Yoon Hee's hand telling her that she needed to survive. 

Hyuk survived similar conditions in North Korea and currently attends Hangyeore Middle-High School in South Korea, a school created by the South Korean government for North Korean orphans that does not charge tuition. While Hyuk acknowledges the struggles of living and adjusting to South Korean lifestyle, Hyuk acknowledges, “I am very comfortable, because I can openly say anything.”

Currently, Yoon Hee has lived in Seoul for two years and works a part-time job and studies with other North Korean girls. Even though her mother abandoned her, Yoon Hee says she would love her mother rather than blame her for the past.