In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom

On her journey to South Korea, Park is forced to make decisions and sacrifices to ensure her own survival. From giving up her body to selling those of other girls in the human trafficking network, her actions are at first guided by an instinctual will to live and later by the desire to be treated with dignity. In a hostile environment where she is considered subhuman by the government and the people around her, these experiences highlight the price she had to pay for survival and raise the question: Can the worth of a human being come with a price tag?

In the eyes of the Chinese bride trafficking market, the answer is a resounding yes. Park’s mother is valued at around $2,100 (115). She is forced not only to act as a bride for the first family that buys her, but also to do menial tasks around the farm. Her cell phone is confiscated to isolate her from Park, and she is ordered around like a farm animal (115-116). Between being sent back to North Korea to be tortured and staying in China to be raped, the price of survival is high no matter the road she picks. Park decides to stay in China, where she is at least being fed.