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We have noticed the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea has become more active; recently they held a meeting on sanctions and on February 22 they are holding a discussion on a topic that is near to our hearts: violence against women, including as connected to trafficking and the refugee question.
The deadline to express interest in attending has been extended to February 1. For more information on the conference and contact information please see here.
The UK All-party Parliamentary Group on North Korea is also hosting an event titled "A Talk With Sungju Lee: North Korean Refugee and UK Chevening Scholar" at 17:00 on Monday February 1. The event is open to the public; please see the invitation below.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea invites you to attend an event titled ‘A Talk With Sungju Lee: North Korean Refugee and UK Chevening Scholar’ at 17:00 on Monday 1st February in Committee Room 17, the Houses of Parliament.
Sungju Lee is a North Korean refugee who originally hailed from Pyongyang and escaped North Korea in 2002, resettling in South Korea in 2003. He went on to study Political Science and Journalism in Sogang University, has interned for Conservative MP Barry Devolin in the Canadian Parliament, and is currently studying in the UK on a Chevening Scholarship.
Brief: Sungju and his family lived in Pyongyang where his father was an official in Kim Il Sung’s personal military guard. When Sungju was ten years of age, Kim Jong Il dismissed the military guard and Sungju’s family were forced to move to the rural north-east of the country. Experiencing unfathomable levels of poverty and food deprivation, Sungju’s parents escaped to China and, left alone, Sungju joined a group of teenage boys who would steal and beg for survival. Eventually, Sungju’s father was able to pay for his son to be smuggled across the China-DPRK border and on to freedom in South Korea.
This event is organised by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea.
