94 of staying in refugee camps, immigration offices or ‘hideouts’ during their time in third countries as something that was very difficult to live through and something they do not want to remember. They are soldiers, so if you make a mistake they also beat women. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, but because you don’t understand their language, they beat you and kick you. … During the day they open the door once in a while and tell you to go to the toilet, but sometimes when someone suddenly has to go to the toilet and knocks at the door, they swear very badly. … Because [the toilet] is inside but on the other side of the corridor, you know. &ot in our room. You open the door and go out into the hallway and then it’s next to the hallway, you know. But what’s really bad is that they don’t open the door for you at night. But you have to go to the toilet in the night. But they don’t open the door at all. At night, in the evenings at 10 o’clock they do the last lockup. They open it in the morning, but there are people who want to go to the toilet in the night. That means they have to pee in the corner, into the bin. In the mornings, they go and throw it secretly into the toilet, clean it up and come back in but, for example, when we were there, someone got into big trouble with the soldiers for that. You know, I saw that a woman secretly went and disposed of it. For that [she got into big trouble]. But this is something human beings can’t help doing, how can you not pee if you need to? Shall we pee into our blankets? This is something natural. Because they don’t open the door. I saw her coming back in after throwing it away. For doing that, he beats this woman in the face, you don’t get treated like a human being. And we thought because this is a camp, their behaviour is natural. (Kim Jinsun, 2009, 1-4) As I was abandoned in Thailand I roamed around, I wandered around looking for that office. Really, I was as exhausted as one can get but when I came in here, even the food didn’t suit our taste. In cases like mine, I couldn’t live in China and I had left my home in &orth Korea, but when I came here, 380 women were sitting in here just in their panties and underwear because of the heat, and on top of that, in there, because life in there was tedious, everyone’s nerves were strained and they were always arguing. (Kim Myeonghui, 2009, 3-3) So we bought ourselves a little space, but as travelling with my whole family had cost an enormous amount of money, what money would we have left? So the three of us, we were sitting on this tiny bit of space which was actually meant for one, couldn’t lie down, couldn’t eat. We kept swapping positions and stayed like this from when we went in on the 20th until the 22nd. … You have to buy a space but how could you have enough money for three people? That’s why we bought one space and sat there all three of us, couldn’t even lie down, my kid getting all stressed. (Kim Geumyeong, 2009, 3-2) When I was trying to buy a space, there was no room at all, so I had to stand with one leg up. It was so tiring, so I stood on one leg and then on the other in turn. After three days I managed to finally buy a space. When you lie down in your little space, you can’t stretch your arm out. You have to keep it bent. I stayed there for three months. It was really hard. (Jang Sukhui, 2009, 2-7)