Imagine living in North Korea. Then imagine your mother selling herself into a forced marriage in China to pay for your escape. This is what happened to Kim Geum Sung.
In 2019, the teenager arrived in South Korea alone. His mother remained in China so that her son might have a better life.For more than a year, Geum Sung heard nothing from her or how she was doing. He moved into a group home in Seoul run by Kim Tae Hoon, who has spent 20 years caring for North Korean orphans.
When Geum Sung’s mother was finally able to contact him through a middleman, she seemed content. She spoke kindly of the man she lived with, and for the first time, mother and son could talk freely. But like many North Korean women in China, she was living without legal status and under local police surveillance and control.
But now her situation has taken a perilous turn for the worse. Chinese authorities detained her and she may be facing imminent forced return to North Korea. Geum Sung is making a simple plea: release his mother, who sacrificed everything for him.
Over a year ago, Chinese authorities detained Geum Sung’s mother as she was trying to go to South Korea. If returned to North Korea, she could face torture, forced labor, sexual violence, and enforced disappearance. In 2014, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s report on North Korea found that China's cooperation in forced returns could amount to aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity.
China is party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture. Both prohibit forcibly returning anyone to where they face a real risk of persecution or torture. Yet the government routinely violates this obligation. Between January 2024 and September 2025, at least 406 North Koreans have been forcibly returned, bringing the total to at least 1,076 since 2020.
The Chinese government should immediately stop forced returns and provide asylum to North Korean refugees or permit them safe passage to a third country.
"I just want to ask the world to help me save my mother," Geum Sung says.
