88 Korean refugees who ask for help and brokers who do the job and receive money in return is completely dependent on the mere words of the latter; thus, the agreement cannot be modified or controlled by North Korean refugees. This interviewee who lived in China as an illegal resident could not seek any kind of support. Due to her position as an illegal resident, she could not turn to the state authorities for help. People like this Chinese man convince North Korean refugee women – who do not enjoy the right to demand legal protection in the country concerned – to enter exploitative deals. However, human rights violations by brokers do not only refer to exploitative deals; brokers also expose North Korean refugee women to life threatening dangers. When I was in Yanbian there was another thing that happened to me. Because I wanted to move to Cheongdo, [I was told] that there is this boss, Mr. &am, and if I met him I would be introduced to someone coming here, [I was told] he would make me meet a Korean boss, and as I was told this kind of things I went to meet him, but then he said I should come to some hotel. So we both went there together. When we went there and went into the room with that room number, there were two people, two beds were there and two people, and there were tubes looking like experimental devices lying around. When I saw these things [I instantly thought], ‘We shouldn’t have come here’. My legs were shaking terribly and how my heart was bumping with fear, at that time I was in my early 30s, but the girl who’d come with me was in her early 20s. Thinking that because of me everything could go wrong for this girl, too, [I thought] whatever it takes we have to get out of here. When I thought of it again later on, these people, I think it was drugs. It was something that looked like a round test casket, something that looked similar to a fish tank, there were tubes connected to it like straws, and they were sucking on it like this. At that time I didn’t know that that was drugs but I thought that this was a place we definitely shouldn’t have come to. (Han Junhui, 2009, 2-1) Han Junhui (2009, 2-1) went to this place believing someone’s words that she would be introduced to a new job but saw that this was not the place she had expected and barely escaped a dangerous situation by saying she ‘will come back tomorrow’. She was confronted with such a situation because brokers abused her position as a North Korean refugee woman who lacked even minimal rights or means to protect herself. For North Korean refugee women living in China, information constituted an important link between their isolated islands and the world. In general, information could be obtained only through brokers, and connections with family members in North Korea, too, were only possible through the latter. Thus, North Korean refugee women have to