It is a day in April 2011. I am sitting in a car with others on my way to visit a woman who will turn out to have gone through a terrible ordeal. She lives in northeastern China. The area we are driving through seems desolate and abandoned. We arrive at a slightly dilapidated house. At the front door of the house we are met by a small woman. To me she just looks like a young girl, but it turns out she has a four-year-old son. Her Asian appearance deceives me a little. We sit down on the floor, as is traditional in many parts of Asia. It doesn't take long before the woman, who is now sitting with the boy on her lap, starts crying. She feels so lonely and isolated from the outside world. She misses her grandmother in North Korea. At the same time, she is probably a little overwhelmed by the fact that there are suddenly people from outside visiting her. Tim, our partner, prays for her.
Cheated and sold
About 7 years ago, she had crossed the border from North Korea into China. She was looking for a better life. You can't blame her. People are literally starving to death in North Korea. But it turned out that she had been tricked by some soldiers and sold to a man in China. However, it wasn't long before this man dumped her and traveled to South Korea. She was then sold again to a new man with whom she has a four-year-old boy. It was her in-laws who sold her. And here we are - in the small house far away from civilization. Her 4-year-old boy has very red cheeks. This is because the winter is so bitterly cold. It leaves its mark on the skin, which becomes a little raw to look at.
Collecting mushrooms
The North Korean woman also earns a living by going to the mountains with her boy to collect mushrooms to sell at the market. When she was still living in North Korea, she lost her mother at an early age due to heart problems. As a result, her father found another woman and she had to live with her grandmother. That's why she thinks back to her grandmother in particular. She has a deep longing to get back to her.
Christian charity
During the visit we are accompanied by another woman. She is an evangelist and visits women like this to care for them and introduce them to the Gospel. She herself is a former staunch communist, but her sister, who first became a Christian, was persistent in prayer and eager to see her sister become a Christian. This led to her becoming an ardent evangelist. She shows a special care for the woman we visit. I sense during the visit that they are on the same wavelength. The North Korean woman has become a Christian herself after coming to China. This is because the Christians from the underground church show charity to the North Korean women who have fled North Korea. The woman with the child we are sitting with lives with her second husband. He doesn't beat her as much as many of the women who are married off to men in the area. Many women who have fled to China, like the woman with the child, are sold to Chinese men who may have difficulty finding a wife themselves. The women are therefore seen as a kind of "slave", bought for the sake of the man and not for love. The children they have together are referred to as stateless people, who are considered neither North Korean nor Chinese. This makes them particularly vulnerable. For example, if a woman is captured by the authorities and sent back to North Korea, the children will often be seen as a nuisance to the man who bought the woman and he wants them gone because the woman is no longer there. In some cases, the Chinese grandparents step in and help the children, but in other situations there is no one to take care of the children. In such cases, it is particularly important that Christians who know the situation help the children find shelter. The Danish European Mission supports stateless children in China who have lost contact with their North Korean mothers while providing additional support to the stateless children affected by the tragic circumstances of North Korean refugees, even though they may still have their North Korean mother with them. The North Korean woman I visited here is just one of many who have fled North Korea to China. They are in an extremely dangerous situation and their children are particularly vulnerable.
