Tuesday, 2 September at 9.30pm on SBS ONE

This week on Dateline, video journalist Mary Ann Jolley meets one young inspiring woman who escaped life under the North Korea’s dictatorship, becoming a celebrity in her adoptive country, South Korea. She shares her remarkable tale of survival and success.

Yeon-Mi Park’s journey to a new life started when her older sister, Eun-Mi escaped North Korea with a friend.

Yeon-Mi parents, desperate to find their daughter, bribed guards on the border to cross the Tumen River into China. When they finally reached China they were told that Eun-Mi had been killed.

Eventually Yeon-Mi arrived in South Korea and started her new life in Seoul, but she still lived with the heartache of not knowing what really happen to her older sister. That’s when she made an emotional plea on TV.

“...Eun-mi... I miss you so much. I won’t be able to die in peace until I see you again.” Yeon-Mi tells a TV audience in South Korea.

20 year-old Yeon-mi Park has now become a celebrity in South Korea, speaking out against Kim Jong-un’s regime and becoming a new face of North Korean defectors. In January this year she was finally reunited with her older sister, who survived her own hazardous escape from North Korea. 

Tune into Dateline, Tuesday, 2 September at 9.30pm on SBS ONE to see the full story.