Joseph Kim was 12 when his father starved to death during the devastating famine that swept across North Korea in the early 1990s.
“Then, one day, my sister and my mother disappeared,” he says.
Some time later, he learned that his mother had crossed the Chinese border and, in desperation, had sold his sister as a bride to a Chinese. But as she was caught trying to return to North Korea, she was arrested and sent to prison, leaving Mr Kim alone on the streets of Undok, near the Chinese border in the far north -eastern North Korea.
Forced to fend for himself, he became one of the “kkotjebi” or flower swallows – the poetic name given to North Korea’s homeless people, most of whom are children abandoned by their parents or elderly people chased away by families who can no longer care for them.
Reports smuggled through activist networks suggest that North Korea’s homeless population is growing, with food once again desperately scarce.
Mr Kim, who escaped the country in 2006 and is now associated with the George W Bush Institute think tank in Dallas, knows exactly what they are going through.
Struggling to survive
After his immediate family abandoned him, he was taken in by aunts and uncles, but it was made clear that he was a burden on families already struggling to survive.
“I thought it was better if I was on the streets, even if it meant I didn’t have the guarantee of three meals a day,” he said. “I wanted freedom and I knew I was unwanted.”
Mr. Kim survived thanks to his intelligence, by begging from farmers, in markets or at train stations. Grandmothers could often be counted on for their generosity, he said, as well as – surprisingly – the soldiers. Mr Kim says he suspects they took pity on him as they were also young and estranged from their families.
When begging failed, he stole. Markets and train stations offered the richest pickings for a pickpocket, although there was always a possibility of them getting caught.
In the early hours of one morning, he was stealing a metal gate from a street in Undok to sell it for scrap when he saw a group of teenagers staring at it.
Steal coal from homes
“I knew I had to make a choice between running or staying,” he said. “If I ran, they would catch me and there were three of them, so they could take everything I had with me. But I had nothing, so I stayed.
One of the boys asked if he had a lighter, and in the moonlight he recognized a childhood friend. Mr. Kim was welcomed into the gang, and on the first night they broke into a house to steal coal.
Over the next few months, they made a living by breaking into homes and taking any food or items they could sell. During the winter months – the average temperature in Undok is minus 11°C in January – they took over abandoned buildings.
This first gang did not last long as three boys were captured and Mr. Kim never saw them again, but he forged similar alliances with other homeless children.
Mr Kim survived on the streets for three years before escaping after deciding to go in search of his sister.
When asked if he had been able to find out anything about her, Mr Kim’s response was short: “Nothing”.
He said, “I didn’t survive because I was better at begging or stealing than the other boys; I survived because I knew I had been loved by my parents and my sister. It allowed me to continue.
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