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They were among North Korea’s elite, but they fled anyway. Here’s why
- Born into an elite North Korean family with ties to the ruling dynasty, Oh Hye-son grew up believing she was ‘special’ – but then tasted freedom overseas
- Oh recently published a memoir on how she and her husband Thae Yong-ho, then deputy ambassador at North Korea’s London embassy, defected in 2016
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Born into an elite North Korean family with ties to the ruling dynasty, Oh Hye-son grew up believing she was “special” – but then she tasted freedom overseas and decided to defect.
Most of the tens of thousands of North Koreans who have escaped repression and poverty at home make an arduous, high-risk journey across the country’s land border with China, where they face arrest and possible deportation.
Oh’s family’s defection was less dangerous but equally wrenching: she convinced her husband Thae Yong-ho, then deputy ambassador at North Korea’s London embassy, to give up their privileged place in the Pyongyang regime for the sake of their children.
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“I wanted to never return to North Korea and questioned why North Koreans had to live such a hard life,” she said in an interview in Seoul, where she now lives.
02:47
Former member of North Korea’s elite details her decision to defect
Former member of North Korea’s elite details her decision to defect
Years of postings across Europe – in Denmark, Sweden and Britain – exposed the family to a different life, she said, adding that when she first arrived in London she thought: “If there is paradise, this must be it”.
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