John Anderson Direct: With Yeonmi Park, Human Rights Activist and Author

John Anderson: Conversations

Human rights activist and author Yeonmi Park grew up in North Korea, a brutal, communist society devoted to the worship of Kim Jong-Il. At the age of 13, she and her family made a daring escape to China in search of a life free of tyranny. In her viral talks, viewed online nearly 350 million times, Park urges audiences to recognise—and resist—the oppression that exists in North Korea, and around the world. In this interview she recounts her story of escape from North Korea, only to be sold into slavery in China, before eventually finding freedom in South Korea and the US. Her personal story is a cautionary one for us in the West as she articulates her concern that there is a creeping authoritarianism spreading through our society and its institutions. She warns us that our freedoms are precious and precarious and that we need to fight to keep hold of them. Her powerful memoir is called, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom.