When I worked in the UFD in North Korea, I was treated very specially compared to the regular residents of North Korea. That is shown in the supplies that I received, the rationing.
In North Korea, people are divided into classes according to the type of rations that you get there. There are daily rations, rations every three days, weekly rations, and then monthly rations. Most of the people in North Korea receive monthly rations, but people in the central party receive rations daily, every three days, or weekly.
As an employee of the UFD, I, like most of my colleagues, basically received all the humanitarian aid that was sent to North Korea from South Korea. We were responsible for it. We got it first. The people in my department were supplied first with aid that came from South Korea. After I defected and went to South Korea, I worked for a while in a national institute, so in North Korea I worked on South Korea, and in South Korea I worked on North Korea's issues.
When it comes to defectors right now and what North Korea is doing, they're trying their best to prevent any other high-level people from defecting from the country. First of all, for the people who have the most power, they're not allowing them to travel abroad at all. At the OGD, which is the Organization and Guidance Department of North Korea, people who are in management there are not allowed to travel abroad at all. The people who are diplomats of course have to go abroad, and, for those people, what North Korea does is take their family members hostage. They keep them in the country. They don't let the family members follow. Only the diplomats themselves, and maybe just one of their family members, are allowed to go to a different country, so the rest of the family members are held hostage in the country.
Thank you.