{"id":8539,"date":"2026-10-13T22:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8539"},"modified":"2026-10-13T22:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:34:16","slug":"interview-defector-who-won-37210-from-kim-jong-un-in-lawsuit-vows-to-fight-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=8539","title":{"rendered":"[INTERVIEW] Defector who won $37,210 from Kim Jong-un in lawsuit vows to fight on"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Choi Min-kyeong, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, poses in front of the National Assembly, Sept. 21. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Editor\u2019s note<\/h3>\n

This article is the third in a series of interviews with people whose lives intersect with North Korea, offering firsthand accounts of the risks, routes and relationships that connect the two Koreas and continue to shape their lives today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In July 2025, Choi Min-kyeong brought an unusual suit against someone few would have tried to lodge a case against: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was the first time a North Korean defector filed a lawsuit against Kim, seeking damages for the torture and sexual violence she suffered in North Korea.<\/p>\n

“People around me said filing the lawsuit made no sense,” Choi, 55, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, said in an interview with The Korea Times. “At first, a police officer who took my complaint thought it was ridiculous and dismissed it.”<\/p>\n

However, in August, the Seoul Central District Court sided with Choi in her damages suit against Kim, awarding the full 50 million won ($37,210) she had sought.<\/p>\n

“I was happy and proud when I heard the ruling. I risked my life filing this lawsuit because I couldn’t get my eldest daughter out. The 50 million won is just symbolic, calculated from court fees and legal costs, since even 500 billion won wouldn’t satisfy my anger,” Choi said, adding that the ruling established a legal basis to arrest Kim if he ever enters South Korea.<\/p>\n

Born in North Hamgyong Province, Choi came from a family of high standing in North Korea’s class system. But her life changed in the mid-1990s during a famine that killed somewhere between 600,000 to 3 million people.<\/p>\n

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Choi Min-kyeong, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, protests at the North Korean mission in Geneva, Switzerland, April 1, 2025. Courtesy of Choi Min-kyeong <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“For the first year or two after food rations stopped, we survived on stored food and belongings we sold off. By the third year, people were starving to death across North Korea, and disease was spreading,” Choi said. “Seeing bodies along the side of the road became part of daily life.”<\/p>\n

In 1997, Choi’s father died of illness. Later that year, she and her mother crossed the Tuman River to flee North Korea. China was not yet cracking down on defectors, but enforcement tightened over time.<\/p>\n

As the number of defectors rose, China started increasing forced repatriations. In exchange, North Korea sold resources to China at low prices, according to Choi.<\/p>\n

Around the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China issued a nationwide order to find and repatriate defectors, and Choi was among those caught by police and sent back to North Korea. She was held for five months at a detention facility in North Hamgyong Province, where she was tortured and sexually assaulted.<\/p>\n

“When defectors are repatriated, they are handed over to North Korea’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) for interrogation. Men and women alike are stripped naked. As a woman and as a human being, I endured humiliation and sexual violence that I could never have imagined.”<\/p>\n

From there, Choi was transferred to a re-education camp in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, where conditions were just as brutal. “Pregnant women were kicked in the stomach with boots to induce miscarriages, then forced into hard labor with no time to recover. Many died.” <\/p>\n

Choi was granted amnesty on Sept. 9, 2010 \u2014 the anniversary of North Korea’s founding. When she was released, her weight had dropped from 57 to 27 kilograms and her height had shrunk from 160 to 156 centimeters.<\/p>\n

Even years later, post-traumatic stress disorder haunts her with nightmares, insomnia and headaches. “I can’t wear skirts in the summer because I have so many scars on my skin.” <\/p>\n

After her release, Choi told relatives in China through a broker that she was alive and asked for help escaping again. In August 2011, she received money from China and waited for the Tuman River to freeze, fleeing in January 2012 and reaching South Korea that October.<\/p>\n

Her lawsuit traces back to 2023, when China repatriated more than 600 North Korean defectors after the Hangzhou Asian Games. China told the United Nations at the time that there was no evidence of torture in North Korea.<\/p>\n

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Choi Min-kyeong, second from left, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, holds a legal complaint against North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, July 11, 2025. Courtesy of Choi Min-kyeong <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Angry victims and human rights activists stepped up efforts to establish legal accountability, prompting Choi to sue Kim.<\/p>\n

Choi originally planned to sue China and North Korea together, but ultimately did not name China because the case would have been too big and costly. She also planned to sue five North Korean officials from agencies such as the MSS along with Kim, but couldn’t include them because South Korean law requires defendants to be identified by name.<\/p>\n

Backed by legal funding from a Dutch nongovernmental organization, Choi filed the lawsuit against Kim in July 2025.<\/p>\n

“Even in the re-education camp, I had a sense of purpose to survive and expose the atrocities I saw. Having witnessed my family’s tragic deaths and those of countless others, I felt a responsibility to go beyond testimony and leave a legal record,” Choi said.<\/p>\n

Collecting the 50 million won awarded by the court from Kim is virtually impossible, but Choi is seeking to seize it from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, a South Korean fund for exchange projects with the North.<\/p>\n

While that effort now awaits a Supreme Court ruling, Choi said the South Korean government needs to take a more active interest in North Korean human rights.<\/p>\n

“Human rights are universal, not a political tool, and raising them can deal the biggest blow to the North Korean regime. To free innocent North Koreans, Kim must be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court,” she said.<\/p>\n

Choi said her association of survivors from North Korea will keep speaking out and documenting abuses and testimony, and will not stop until those responsible are held accountable.<\/p>\n

“We are survivors and living witnesses on a mission to make the reality of North Korea’s human rights record known at home and abroad … We will fight until those responsible for its crimes against humanity are punished and innocent North Koreans gain freedom and human rights.”<\/p>\n

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Choi Min-kyeong, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, poses with her book “Account of Escaping North Korea” in Seoul, Aug. 15, 2025. Courtesy of Choi Min-kyeong <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Choi Min-kyeong, president of the Imprisonment Victims’ Family Association, poses in front of the National Assembly, Sept. 21. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Editor\u2019s note This article is the third in a series of interviews with people whose lives intersect with North Korea, offering firsthand accounts of the risks, routes and relationships that connect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-korea"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t