This is what happens to the families of deserting North Korean soldiers who escape from the country

North Korea is one of the most isolated nations in the world but details of life in the hermit nation do manage to trickle out from time to time via those who escape the clutches of the authoritarian regime. The communist nation strips the subjugated people of power, using brutal repression and indoctrination to maintain control over the North Korean populous.

Survivors of the regime started by Kim Il Sung in 1948 and now led by his grandson Kim Jong Un have shared harrowing stories of the punishments dealt out to those who do something wrong or commit a crime against the regime. And it isn’t just the person that committed the offense that gets punished but also three generations of their family.

This is what happens to the families of deserting North Korean soldiers who escape from the country

Those who defect are labeled “traitors to the country,” explained Soyeon Lee, in the documentary ‘Beyond Utopia’. That classification is also given to their families that they left behind and their relatives are cast down to the lowest rung of the hierarchical society and considered “hostile forces” in North Korea.

“They are forcibly dismissed from responsible positions in society and become socially hostile forces that prevent their children, and in extreme cases, even their cousins, from entering college or the military,” she said. Her father, for example, was dismissed from his position as a university professor.

They are also put under 24-hour surveillance by the National Security Agency and security agents. Their every move is followed, and their family’s phones are bugged. Furthermore, they are deported, relocated and forced to do hard labor in factories, mines or rural areas or sent to political prison camps.

Once such example was reported in the Guardian in 2015. Two 20-year-old children of two defectors were forced to do hard labor in an agricultural machinery factory which is infamously known for being a particularly harsh workplace. They had to work in the blast furnace under strict surveillance with no privacy at any time.

Punishing the entire family of defectors is intended to both deter others and prevent family members from attempting to escape.

Basically, the families of defectors are given what amounts to a death sentence. “They are unable to engage in economic activities there and end up dying of hunger,” Lee said.