96 alternating between legs. Kim Geumyeong (2009, 3-2) also narrated how she bought a place meant for one person and how the three of them lived on this little space being neither able to lie down nor to eat. North Korean refugee women recall their life in third countries as ‘the most terrible time’, as a time when ‘everyday seemed like a thousand years’. Being exposed to violations of their basic human rights constituted a painful experience which North Korean refugee women could not easily forget. 3) Verbal abuse – ‘You people, being nothing but North Korean defectors’ When the number of North Korean refugee women coming to South Korea increased, broker organizations established an internationally operating chain linking North Korea – China – South Korea. In this chain, North Korean refugees, Chinese as well as South Koreans are connected, and remittances to North Korea are also sent and organized through these brokers. However, brokers offer their guidance only until one reaches the state borders, so that North Korean refugee women, once they crossed the borders, have to manage on their own. Kim Yeonghui (2009, 1-5), too, took a bus to the border, crossed Vietnam and arrived in a hideout in Cambodia. Here, she lived through an experience that she ‘won’t be able to forget until I die’. There is a refugee camp where &orth Korean refugees are accommodated. That one was directly managed by a pastor and was called Our Church. In that church I spent around three and a half months, but there were around 200 people crammed together in that small space. At that time, we almost died in there because it was too hard to endure. That time was so tough that I won’t be able to forget it until I die. That time. There is this pastor who runs the centre and another Gyopo man. But even these people don’t treat us like human beings. … First of all, [you can’t imagine how] rude their language is, really, towards us; anyway, we have, well, because &orth Korea as a country was poor we’ve come after suffering endless humiliation in China, but we are still human beings. But still, these people [said] ‘Pah, &orth Korea so-and-so, you people’. ‘You people, being nothing but &orth Korean defectors...’ Every single day they continually talked like this. (Kim Yeonghui, 2009, 1-5) In this place, North Korean refugee women were not treated as human beings. Continuously, they had to hear insulting comments such as ‘You people, being nothing but North Korean defectors’, ‘North Korea so-and-so, you people’ from the managers.