North Korean defector Yeonmi Park is firing back after American students told the survivor of communism and human trafficking that she does not “understand oppression.”
“They have no idea that I was, at 13 years old, being sold as a sex slave in China for two years of my life,” Park told Fox News Digital. “I do understand oppression.”
Park will speak at an anti-communism event Oct. 1 at Cornerstone University, a Christian school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The event, titled “Why Not Communism? A Wisdom Conversation on Freedom, Faith and the Future of America,” will examine the history and consequences of communism and socialism.
Cornerstone University President Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño said the school organized the event after becoming concerned about Americans’ growing openness to those ideologies.
“Frankly, we became alarmed and concerned because the history of communism, socialism is a dark one,” Moreno-Riaño told Fox News Digital.
“We thought we need to step up as a university committed to educating men and women for our country and really inform the community, educate the community and our students and the country at large about the moral bankruptcy of communism and socialism,” he added.
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Park grew up under North Korea’s socialist government during the devastating famines of the 1990s. She experienced hunger, poverty and political persecution before escaping across a frozen river into China with her mother at age 13.
The two were then sold into human trafficking rings. After two years of exploitation and hiding from Chinese authorities, Christian activist networks helped them escape through Mongolia. They eventually found freedom in South Korea.
Park said many American students encounter communism as an attractive theory without understanding what happens when governments put it into practice.
“I had to live through [a] real socialist government every day until I escaped from North Korea,” Park told Fox News Digital. “And I know it is not nice when it is actually enforced [in] real life.”
Park warned that freedom is rare throughout much of the world and should never be treated casually. The Varieties of Democracy Institute estimates that 74% of the global population lives under autocratic governments.
“For me, I was fortunate that I had a country to escape to from North Korea to America, but if we lose this country, we are all going to die, actually,” Park said.
For Cornerstone University, defending freedom is also a matter of Christian conviction.
“We believe that the gospel sets us free,” Moreno-Riaño said. “So, liberty and freedom are at the core of our Christian faith through the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
He also pointed to the Imago Dei, the biblical truth that every person is created in God’s image, as the foundation of human dignity and liberty.
Park’s story offers Americans a warning that cannot be dismissed as classroom theory. We must understand the history of communism, defend God-given human dignity and refuse to remain silent as destructive ideologies are repackaged for a new generation.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
