“We were all blocked from western media, outside information. We were captured in a virtual prison cell. People would disappear in the middle of the night - not every day, but sometimes. We hear about it, and we never knew what happened inside the prison camps. I learned about them after I escaped.”

North Korean defector and activist

Lee Hyeon-seo is a North Korean defector and activist based in Seoul, South Korea. She is best known for her book, The Girl with Seven Names. She escaped North Korea and later helped guide her family out of the country through China and Laos. Her public work centers on defection, survival, and the difficult choices faced by people leaving North Korea.