Thailand may have been taken to task by the international community for its treatment of émigrés escaping persecution, from the Rohingya to the Uighur and some Chinese dissidents. But for North Korean defectors running away from their country, Thailand is often their only safe haven.
For over a decade, Thailand has been among the few countries in the world counted on by those escaping the world's most secretive and iron-fisted country to have themselves forwarded to South Korea where they are likely to be given citizenship and a new life. With China -- their first pit stop -- striving to repatriate them, defectors instead set their sights on an odyssey of thousands of kilometres to reach "third countries" such as Mongolia, Laos and Thailand, whose policies are arguably more lenient.
However, with Mongolia featuring the perilous terrain of the Gobi desert and Laos blowing hot and cold in dealing with the issue in recent years (nine defectors were repatriated in 2013), Thailand remains the top choice for North Koreans to surrender themselves to authorities to be deported to their destination.
Some 90% of about 30,000 North Koreans seeking asylum in South Korea came through Thailand, according to Lee Hyeon-seo, a North Korean defector who became the first from the country to speak at "TED Talks" in February in 2013 and now works as an activist for issues surrounding North Korean human rights and refugees. She was in Thailand for the first time earlier this month to speak at the Bangkok Edge Festival.
"Thailand is the only country that protects North Korean defectors and guarantees to send them to South Korea, for 100%," Lee said. "It's the only country as far as I know."
However, Lee also said she had been worried about the Thai government's recent leaning towards China and that the Chinese influence may affect the plight of North Korean defectors.
"Right now, the Chinese government supports Thailand and countries in Southeast Asia. I just hope the Thai government doesn't listen to either the North Korean government or the Chinese government and send the defectors back to North Korea. I want them to keep doing what they do because it's our only hope."
Although Lee pins her hope on Thailand to help her fellow North Koreans, she didn't escape through this route herself. Her case was different from most defectors' stories as she managed to fly directly to South Korea, as told in her recent autobiography The Girl With Seven Names. Another aspect that makes her escape story a one of a kind is that unlike most defectors whose goal was to break free from destitution, she came from a privileged family and sneaked into China through her sense of wanderlust. (The book will be available in a Thai translation next month.) Lee's book adds to the growing literature about North Korean defectors penned after the escape, which includes In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey To Freedom by Park Yeon-mi, a young woman who fled through China; and Dear Leader, a memoir by poet Jang Jin-sung who was once among the inner circle of Kim Jong-il.
Lee's book is another personal account, and the title, The Girl With Seven Names, reflects different identities she went by during her 10 years in China living as an illegal immigrant. "Lee Hyeon-seo", is the seventh name she has adopted after reaching freedom, with "Hyeon" meaning "sunshine" and Seo meaning "good fortune".
Lee was born in 1980 in the northern border city of Hyesan, the country's porous spot that offers its people a glimpse of the outside world through the halogen and neon signs coming from China from across the separating Yalu River. This was the very river she would cross 17 years later.
Despite having a father who was an air force officer and being insulated from the North Korean famine that began in 1994, Lee's childhood was nevertheless as robbed of as others' by the regime without her awareness. She had to go through a series of North Korean-styled absurdities from joining the Socialist Youth League to learn how to fire live ammunition at the age of 14 to memorising the indoctrination of the leaders and the country as part of her school's curriculum.
"To me, he [Kim Il-sung, the founder of the country] was everything," Lee said. "He was god. Whenever I received gifts from my parents, I didn't thank my parents. I was just holding gifts and I just looked at his pictures. I thought everything good came from him. Although sometimes there was fear when I saw public executions. But I thought that was a normal part of life and every country in the world had the same situation."
It was when Lee was approaching 18 years of age, the time when she would be seen as an adult in the eyes of the law, that she came up with a plan to slip across the river to China's border city of Changbai. She thought she would make it back in no time. Little did she know once she had stepped onto the foreign land, fate would not allow her to go back for good and instead spin her through a succession of life-and-death events. After a decade of a lonely life on the run, she finally arrived in South Korea in 2008.
In 2009, Lee went back to China to help her mother and brother escape via Laos. Though the journey took almost a year, they both made it to South Korea safe and sound. The three reunited and are adjusting to their new life with freedom.
Lee has recently graduated from Hangkuk University of Foreign Studies where she majored in Chinese, the language she became fluent in during her time in China, which helped her survive a number of run-ins with the police. She is married to an American, a "bastard of the Yankee imperialist United States of America", according to North Korean propaganda, and has been travelling the world to speak on behalf of the people who are still stuck there, hoping that she could be back one day.
Of course, the irony is that Lee does miss home.
"Many people are shocked that I described in my book that I miss my home," Lee said. "People ask, 'How do you miss that?'. But for me, no matter how horrible my hometown is, all my relatives, over 100, are living there now. But they are not living in paradise. They are suffering under the regime. All my friends that I shared my memories with, they are living there. I don't only think North Korea is the land of dictators and the Kim dynasty, but also the land of North Korean people.
"That's why, for me, I want to go back as soon as possible. To help them. That's my home where I will live in the future, in the long run. That's why I'm doing my best to fight against the regime."
