First homosexual defector tells how his world changed when he realized that “men could love men”. What is it like to belong to a sexual minority where “there is no concept of homosexuality”?
It has been 10 years since the publication of the UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights in North Korea, which revealed the dark reality of abuses committed by North Korean authorities.
The report highlighted widespread violations, including cases of deprivation of the rights to adequate food, freedom of expression and free movement. It also detailed other serious abusesuch as torture, forced labor, arbitrary detention, political prison camps, and public executions.
Despite the report’s findings, North Korea recently enacted laws that further restricted citizens’ freedoms and human rights. But there is a largely overlooked group in North Korea — the sexual minorities.
In a totalitarian state where people have no freedom of expression, sexual minorities lead oppressed and unhappy lives, often with little or no understanding of the reasons behind their suffering.
The BBC spoke to sexual minority defectors to find out what their lives are like in the country led by Kim Jong-un.
The first openly homosexual defector
Jang Yeong-jin, a 60-year-old novelist, settled in South Korea in the late 1990s after fleeing North Korea to escape a difficult marriage. He crossed the border into China, hoping to find a route to South Korea.
However, when it didn’t work out, he ended up returning to North Korea. He then decided to venture across the border, crawling through the mine-filled Demilitarized Zone that divides the two countries, to finally reach South Korea.
Says that was “forced to come out of the closet” as gay after giving an interview to foreign press, which was later reproduced by local media in South Korea. He did not realize that the interview would be published there (in the 1990s, in a time without the Internet and having just arrived from North Korea, he did not know that the content of an interview with a foreign media outlet could be shared widely on other places).
Upon arriving in South Korea, she came across a magazine that opened her eyes to the possibility that “men could love men.” From that moment on, his world changed. The man, who once suffered from an unhappy life, no longer existed. He says that, if he had recognized his sexual identity earlier, he could have lived more happily with his family in North Korea.
Divorce “absolutely impossible”
Yeong-jin had been forced to marry in North Korea — he felt suffocated, overwhelmed, and unhappy, but he didn’t understand why. He realized that he was trying to avoid being by his wife’s side. He even went to the hospital with his father-in-law to see if he could get treatment, but they told him they could find no cause or reason for his distress.
“One day, my wife, crying, said to me: ‘I did well in my studies and worked hard, I don’t understand how I ended up in this suffering after meeting a husband like you’. At that moment, I made my decision. I realized I had to free that woman. I went to the People’s Court to ask for a divorce, but I was reprimanded. I was told that divorce was absolutely impossible.”
The childhood friend
As a child, Yeong-jin secretly harbored feelings for Seon-chul, a childhood friend who was tall and handsome enough to be accepted into Pyongyang University of Dramatic and Cinematic Arts. The memory of Seon-chul’s wedding is particularly painful. She remembers standing outside his house on the day of the ceremony and crying profusely as the snow fell, not knowing why he was so angry and upset.
Later, after they both got married, Seon-chul visited Yeong-jin and spent the night at her house. Yeong-jin stayed up all night with his heart racing, unable to sleep because he wanted to be in the same room as Seon-chul.
Hands down pants and caresses are normal in the Armed Forces
During his military service, Yeong-jin’s delicate appearance made him a favorite with his superiors. In the cold of winter, they competed to curl up next to him, sometimes kissing him and rubbing their faces against his. Sometimes their hands would go down your pants.
Yeong-jin ran to the platoon leader to be hugged. Explain that This type of behavior was considered completely natural in the North Korean Armed Forces, emphasizing that it was this “revolutionary camaraderie” which allowed young soldiers to endure the harsh conditions of military life for ten years.
“Revolutionary camaraderie”
Lee Seong-hyuk, who served in the military in Pyongyang in the 2010s and later defected while working abroad, says he adult men in North Korea often hold hands and walk together. As homosexuality is not recognized by the State, these displays of affection between men are accepted as “revolutionary camaraderie”, he explains.
“In our unit, for example, 120 people lived together, and we all slept side by side, completely naked, hugging and rubbing against each other. When younger, more attractive recruits arrived, we hugged them, put our arms around their shoulders, and rubbed against them. As there were no women, if a handsome young man arrived, we treated him as if he were a woman to alleviate our urges.”
“But it’s not about having a ‘weird’ sexual identity; it’s just the result of having spent ten years in a place without women. This does not mean that this person likes other men. So I don’t find it strange at all.”
“In the Army, you inevitably share your body with everyone. You are in a situation where you give your flesh and blood for the other — so, if you are really close, there is no aversion to that.”
“Trying to understand North Korea with a South Korean mindset is impossible. It is necessary to see North Korea through your own lens to fully understand it. There is no concept of homosexuality in North Korea — it is not common sense. They [norte-coreanos] they simply think that someone has an ‘illness’ or is ‘impotent’. Such people may exist, but I believe very few North Koreans recognize themselves as such.”
“There are psychiatric hospitals, but psychiatrists completely dismiss these issues. It is something that absolutely cannot exist and, If discovered, these people [minorias sexuais] would immediately end up in prison on ‘other’ chargesbecause the North Korean authorities themselves consider this inconceivable.”
Pretend to be a man
Park Soon-ja, a defector in her 50s, remembers having a childhood friend named Kim who had difficulty fitting into the social conventions of a village on the border between North Korea and China in the 1990s. 1980.
At age 24, Kim met a Japanese-Korean woman, eight years older and divorced. A neighbor saw them both nakedhugging in a room. Shocked, she ran to tell the head of the Popular Committee what she had witnessed.
“When she heard the story, the head of the Popular Committee [outra mulher] he didn’t believe it, and I told him not to make up lies like that. But that woman took her to the house. When she saw the two women together, she was horrified and decided to report them. Both were detained by the Department of State Security, and later released.”
“When Kim was 25, she visited our house and said she had had breast surgery. When I asked why, she claimed it was because of a tumor. My sister then lifted her shirt to check and asked: ‘Why are you pretending to be a man?’ Back then we laughed.”
“When I met her again, at age 45, her voice was so deep that I joked, ‘Your voice has become curiously deep; Was it because of the cigarette?’ She responded with rambling statements, insisting that she was definitely born male, but that her mother was unable to recognize her true identity.”
“She said that when she was born, her parents should have surgically altered her genitals, but because they didn’t, she ended up like this. It was just bizarre.”
Country must comply with international rights
In North Korea, the scope for recognizing diversity seems extremely limited — and the willingness to express individual desires is systematically repressed.
“In North Korea, the Homosexuality is perceived as antisocial. It is seen as an act of individuals corrupted by capitalism — illegal and ethically wrong, and that’s why it’s natural for them to hide it,” psychologist Jeon Joo Ram, a professor at the University of Seoul who specializes in therapy for North Korean defectors, told the BBC. “While homosexual behavior clearly exists, discussions that address this issue as a question of identity or how we should understand it are not happening at all.”
“When I asked the defectors, some responded that they had been ‘stoned to death‘; and many students were uncomfortable or openly rejected the topic”, adds the professor.
But Shin Hee-Seok, legal analyst at the Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based human rights group, points out: “Discrimination or oppression based on homosexuality is undoubtedly a violation of human rights, as it is prohibited by international human rights law.”
According to the expert, North Korea has an obligation to comply with international human rights — and such discrimination violates international law.
North Korea is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which includes clauses against discrimination without just cause. Furthermore, upon joining the United Nations in 1991, North Korea implicitly agreed in complying with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“In cases of oppression of sexual minorities in North Korea, many human rights violations are perpetrated not only by authorities but also by ordinary citizens. As a result, many defectors arriving in South Korea may be unaware of these issues or reluctant to talk about them,” he adds.
“Changing perceptions takes time, but there needs to be a more proactive discourse that continually raises the question of why this is a problem in terms of human rights and why such oppression should not happen.”
