My name is Lee Kungshin. I am a 30 years old North Korean woman (January 1975) from a small town in South Hamkyong Province, North Korea. My father was a factory worker and died in 1998. I am the fourth daughter of the 6 children. I finished my senior middle school in my hometown in 1994. I had been a government clerk for some 5 years when I defected from North Korea in October 2000 hoping to earn some money for my mother, sisters and a brother who were badly impoverished. Then, unfortunately in China, I ended up in being sold to a Chinese farmer in a very remote village in Shandong province.

I was wife of a very poor Chinese farmer for 7 years and I have a 2-year old daughter with him. The life as a wife of poor Chinese farmer was an utter misery itself and I had to work at factories nearby to help the family. Knowing that I was a North Korean, Chinese in factories and village always tried to rape me because I was not protected by law. My husband did not seem to take my problems seriously. There was a farmer in the same village who harassed me always in an attempt to rape me. In June, 2006, he came to me again drunk and I had to refuse him. He was furious and stabbed me three times. One of the stabs was very serious and I was badly bleeding. I can show you the horrible wound today. My husband's family took me to a hospital nearby and I was dying. No one was sympathetic with me and all the villagers were saying, "Who cares if she dies?" “She has no registration and if she dies, no one would be in trouble.”

I was so upset at the situation and once again realized that I do not belong to China. I wanted to be treated like a human being. I defected from the village on 28 February, 2008 for a new life in freedom. I like to study computer if I am free in South Korea and begin a new life there.