“What do you plan on doing with the baby?” the prison interrogator demanded of me.



I had been back in Onsung Jipgyulso for a few days. The two other women in the interrogation room with me – one seven months pregnant like I was, the other less far along – already knew their babies’ fate: abortion.

I closed my eyes tight. “I’ve made arrangements,” I said finally, making it up as I went. “I’ve made arrangements for the child to be given away after it’s born.”

Silence filled the room. I thought the interrogator was going to reach out and slap me. But I held my head high. If my child was going to die, I was going to die with it.

In 2014 the UN unearthed evidence of women being forced to kill their babies in prison.

“You two,” the interrogator yelled at the other women, “out that door.” He pointed to a back exit. “You,” he barked at me. “Back to your cell.”

If my child was going to die, I was going to die with it

The cell was empty except for two elderly women and a teenager with the bottom half of her leg missing.

I stood by the window and stared out over the barren field. It was a chilly day, the clouds heavy and black. The window was cracked and the wind howled through it.

A shiver ran through me as I felt my baby kick. I wrapped my arms around my stomach. At that moment, a light snow began to fall. But instead of feeling cold, for the first time in a long time, I felt heat move through me.

“Jjanghago haeddulnal Doraondanda,” I sang softly. “A bright sunny day is to come back.”

I didn’t move until the other inmates had come back from work. The cell was bursting with prisoners. There were twice as many as when I had first been here – China had been cracking down on the many women trying to leave North Korea.

We were boxed in, bumping elbows as we drank our evening soup of mushy corn.

“You may have a lucky day coming,” the woman on the other side chimed. “Why?” I asked.

“I’ve heard that a group called the United Nations has ordered Chosun to stop killing the babies of inmates. It’s putting pressure on the [Korean Workers] Party to release pregnant women, children and the old,” she replied.

My eyes rested on the elderly women in the cell who were coughing and wheezing. They could not eat their soup.

Many inmates were sick with diarrhoea and over the next two weeks several women died.

I cared for the infirm as best I could. When the workers went out in the mornings, I would stroke the heads of the sick, holding their hands when they moaned, their bodies writhing in pain.

I used sanitary pads cleaned with soap and cold water as compresses for their foreheads when they had fever.

In exchange, I took the soup that the sick women were unable to eat. I could feel my baby growing stronger.

Struck down sick

On a day in mid-summer an interrogator informed me stiffly that I would be moved to the collection centre near my family’s house.

I didn’t have time to think about whether this was a positive omen because I had succumbed to the illness.

I woke in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, pain gripping my body. “She’s having the baby,” a prisoner screamed at the guard pacing.

“Wake three other inmates and hold her down,” he shouted. Four women each took a part of my body, two my legs, the other two my arms. But my waters never broke.

The pain got worse. I spent hours crouching over the hole in the ground we used for a toilet, but nothing came.

Eventually, with help from some medicine brought in from a prisoner who was allowed to go out for supplies, I was able to regain my strength. I felt the baby kicking again.

House arrest

A few days later I woke from a recurring dream. My legs wobbled and I thought I would faint from the rush of blood to my head. I managed to stay upright as a guard led me to the interrogation room. He directed me to sign some papers, and then he said I could go home.

I felt faint as the sun hit my eyes. But eventually I managed to make it to the front gate. A guard opened it and I walked out and into my mother’s arms.

Jang in Canada Photograph: Stephen Foot/Susan McClelland

“Why did they release me?” I asked her once we were on the train.

“I don’t know. They just told me to come and get you. The head of the local committee is coming by later. She’s been put in charge of watching you. It was the mother of my childhood friend Mihwa.

At my parents’ house, we ate an evening meal of corn rice and cucumber. My mother did what she always had, giving me most of her portion and taking little for herself. I lay back on my mat and was drifting off to sleep when my mother called for me to sit up.

Mihwa’s mother had arrived.

“You were released because there are too many prisoners,” Mihwa’s mother explained, settling into a sitting position on the floor beside me. “You can have the baby at home but I do not have good news for you. The baby will be killed after it is born.”

I clenched my fists in an attempt to contain my anger. I knew my release was too good to be true.

“A year ago you were sentenced to three years in prison. You were released after nine months on a general amnesty and on your assurance that you would not return to China. You returned, however, so after the baby is born, you will go back to prison to finish your sentence.”

Do whatever you want with your baby, but don’t come back here with it, ever

“Which prison?” my mother asked. Her eyes were lost, vacant.

“Kyohwaso,” Mihwa’s mother replied. My mother slumped forward, and my father stood up and started pacing the room. “I have to fulfil my duties... you are under watch. I will be checking in on you.”

I nodded.

“These are the facts,” Mihwa’s mother concluded. She shuffled her body right up against mine. “Do something about it,” she said so softly, I almost didn’t hear.

I looked at my mother, who shook her head indicating I should not ask questions.

When Mihwa’s mother’s footsteps had disappeared, my father and mother exchanged glances. My father went into his room, closing the door behind him.

My mother took me by the elbow. “Wash yourself, change into several pairs of pants and tops, and then go to your uncle’s house in the mountains,” she said, her eyes filled with tears.

“Your father and I knew what Mihwa’s mother was going to say. He believes you should finish your sentence and fulfil your revolutionary duties.

“He doesn’t want you to keep the baby but I know now what it is like to lose a child. I know your brother Hyungchul is dead. I can feel it. Go, do whatever you want with your baby, but don’t come back here with it, ever.”

This is an edited extract from Stars Between the Sun and Moon by Lucia Jang, a North Korean defector who escaped through China to South Korea. She now lives in Canada with her son, the unborn baby described above