Little is known about the exact situation in North Korea. When news does seep out, it is often quite shocking but always difficult to confirm. On September 1, South Korea's spy agency released information that Kim Jong-un had executed his defence chief for "poor posture". It is often defectors who bring news of the condition of citizens.
The video above chronicles the story of one such defector – Chanyang Ju – who has become a champion of the human rights of citizens in her home country. Born during the famine in North Korea in the 1990s, she remembers surviving on dried leaves and grain. It was a small radio with foreign broadcasts that kept her hope alive.
One by one her family escaped. Her own escape proved to be the toughest, since she was under constant surveillance. She swam to China, and then travelled to Thailand before eventually reuniting with her family in South Korea. When she saw them, she felt like it was all a dream, and didn't want to open her eyes because she felt it would end.
Today, Chanyang Ju tries to draw international attention to the situation in North Korea. And remembering the tiny radio that gave her family hope, she appears on radio shows as a way to communicate with people in her home country.
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