Yeonmi Park on sex trafficking, starvation, and the freedoms you can't take for granted.
Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector and human rights activist. She escaped the brutal Kim dictatorship as a teenager only to fall victim to sex trafficking in China, before fleeing to South Korea by walking across the Gobi Desert. Now an American citizen, Park is the author of the international bestseller "While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America" and "In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom."
This student-organized event was hosted by Young America's Foundation on February 5, 2026 at the University of Austin.
00:00 – Preview
00:33 – Sophomore Ben Solin introduces Yeonmi
02:00 – Mamdani is another Kim II-sung
4:28 – Kimchi and collective punishment
7:33 – My father never told me he loved me
8:50 – Your tongue can kill your family
9:34 – All Americans are bastards
11:58 – Grasshoppers are a luxury
13:01 – North Koreans die in the spring
15:12 – Cancer doesn’t kill in North Korea
17:27 – Why my sister left without me
18:37 – I didn’t know one human could sell another
20:02 – Monsters exist
21:12 – The organ harvesters, the brothels, or the chat rooms
23:03 – Only God can deliver you
24:38 – 209 out of 25 million
26:10 – I couldn’t believe America exists
26:54 – Are greedy capitalists the problem?
28:37 – Even North Korea wasn’t this crazy
29:17 – Slavery isn't freedom
30:40 – You can be murdered for speaking in America, too
32:08 – Q&A: Send everyone who hates America to North Korea
34:19 – Q&A: South Koreans have a bigger vocabulary
35:20 – Q&A: I waited my turn
38:40 – Q&A: Only God can create life
41:59 – Q&A: There was no hope
44:26 – Q&A: Should we use military force to eradicate communism?
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