Kim Yumi, North Korean defector who escaped by boat to South Korea with her family in 2023, addressed the 18th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18, 2026.
Full Prepared Remarks:
Hello. It is my honour to stand here today and meet all of you.
I am Kim Yumi. I have lived in North Korea up until recently.
In May 2023, in search of freedom, my eight family members and I have risked our lives to escape from North Korea by sea and defect to South Korea.
My homeland is a place where civilians’ right to life and famine is trampled on, and even the notion of freedom is forbidden.
It is a place where only the dictator’s power is worshipped like god while all freedom including speech, mobility and access to information are oppressed.
Where civilians’ hard work and sacrifice flows into the ruling class’s luxury and indulgence, and missile tests are prioritised over the people’s hunger. This is the reality of North Korea.
Young adults are forced to devote ten years of their youth serving the military, and after being discharged they must work like slaves in coal mines, farms and construction sites. This is the tragic fate of young North Koreans.
However this pain does not only lie within North Korea.
The Kim Jong Un regime have sent young North Koreans into the war zones of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
They were thrown into battlegrounds without even knowing where they are being sent to.
These youths only realised that this is not a military training but an actual war after seeing their comrades die from drone attacks and artillery shells.
Although I have found freedom now, the weight of my freedom feels heavy on my shoulders.
It is because in this very moment, there are two young North Korean men in a prisoner-of-war camp in Ukraine, trembling in fear of being sentenced at any moment ‘repatriation to North Korea’ which means nothing but a death penalty.
Please remember the two North Korean prisoner-of-war, the 22 year old Pyeong Gang Baek and 25 year old Gang Lee, which I call in pseudonym.
These two were forcefully taken into the Russian-Ukrainian war zone a year ago by the Kim Jong Un regime and have become prisoner-of-war by Ukrainian soldiers.
As the end-of-war negotiations are being held now, their fate is at risk of being repatriated to North Korea through Russia, in the name of prisoner exchange.
Yet the moment they land foot in North Korea, what awaits them is imprisonment or execution.
The authoritarian North Korean regime defines the act of becoming a prisoner-of-war instead of committing suicide itself as a betrayal against the regime.
These youths are now crying out and pleading not to be sent back to North Korea. Their desperate cry cannot be simplified to a desire for escape.
It is the youth’s first ever plea to the international community, as those who have never experienced human rights or freedom under a repressive despotic regime.
The 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits forced repatriation of a prisoner-of-war that goes against their own will.
I call on the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross:
If these people are sent back to North Korea, what is the justice that international law stands for?
If we let these poor youths be sent to a place where torture and death await them, The international community becomes an accomplice in dictatorship.
In this moment where two young men’s lives can be sacrificed for a geopolitical negotiation, no word alone can protect their lives.
What we need the most now is action. A proactive implementation that protects human rights.
For the freedom of two young men, and for the future of the many young North Koreans that suffer from oppression, I request the international community to respond proactively.
I also would like to call on the Ukrainian government:
Are you also not fighting for freedom, against a tyrannical invasion?
It was not these men’s own free choice to pick up guns.
Their burst of cry, shouting “I want to go to South Korea, I wish to go to a land of freedom” — This is their plea for freedom, a first in their lifetime, breaking away from the shackles of oppression.
On humanitarian grounds, please respect their own will and send them not to North Korea, but to a land of freedom.
Faced with despair, these youths have even attempted suicide.
Yet upon receiving a letter of encouragement from us North Korean defectors, they have sent back a response.
I will read to you their message:
“We have received well the heartfelt letter.
We were able to feel your worries and support through this letter, caring for us as if we were your blood- related sons and siblings.
We thank everyone who see our situation not as a tragedy but as a start of a new life and support us.
We have decided to think that we are not alone, to view those living in South Korea as our own parents and siblings, and to reach your warm hands.
To the mother who told us she would welcome us with tasty food and nice clothes when we arrive in South Korea..
To those who have encouraged us saying we are family and fellow citizens..
Once we get to South Korea we will meet and express our gratitude in person.
A new hope and aspiration have begun to emerge, thanks to the support of fellow Koreans.
Thank you once again and take care until the day we meet in South Korea.
25th October 2025, from the Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camp.”
Please protect Pyeong Gang Baek and Gang Lee’s dream and aspiration, so they can live as ordinary youths in a free land and not the fatal North Korea.
Stopping their forced repatriation to North Korea is itself the path to protecting human rights and democracy, and a way of standing up against autocracy.
This problem is not limited to the two young men alone.
It is an issue where the future of many young North Korean’s lives living under an oppressive regime is at stake.
If their voices are neglected, many more young North Koreans will be sent to war and countless lives will be lost.
Please show the 26 million North Korean citizens that we are different from North Korea, and that the international community respects human dignity and rights.
Thank you.
