Helping Hands Korea assisting North Korean refugees

During the North Korean famine of the 90's, 2 million North Koreans, like these orphans, have starved to death.

Tim Peters (left) with fellow activists Hwang Jeong Yop (the highest level government official to have ever defected from the North Korean regime) and Dr. Norbert Vollertsen.

Tim (center) with Suzanne Scholte and North Korea refugees, while providing testimony to a Congressional hearing.

Tim Peters with young North Korean refugees in China.

Tim with NK refugees, now in S. Korea.

Tim during a Congressional testimony.

Tim (left) moderating NK Refugee panel at Freedom House, Washington DC.

Timothy Peters, HHK Director

Seoul, Korea
Helping Hands Korea

To contact Helping Hands Korea

TIME
magazine article
"Long Walk to Freedom".

Helping Hands Korea provides advocacy and refuge for North Korean refugees in China, transports refugees via the Underground Railroad to safer countries, and also feeds the vulnerable in schools and orphanages inside North Korea.

Helping Hands Korea (HHK), a Christian mission established in Seoul in 1990, launched its first endeavor to assist North Koreans in crisis in 1996, by providing famine relief to the northeastern portion of the impoverished nation, particularly to schools and orphanages. From 1998, HHK diversified its assistance activities to North Korea by giving special emphasis to direct aid for North Korean refugees in China, and in some circumstances coordinating logistical support for their escape to third countries.

[Background: Since 1995, well over 2 million North Koreans have starved to death, and another 300,000 have fled to neighboring China in search of food and freedom from tyranny. The Chinese government has refused to grant the North Koreans official status as refugees, largely based on Beijing's traditional ties to the communist regime in Pyongyang, as well as fears that such a designation would dramatically boost the already steady influx over the border.]

Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea featured in TIME magazine article on North Korean refugees, "Running Out of the Darkness"

HHK continues to support food deliveries inside North Korea when reliable monitoring can be assured, and channels financial resources to shelter, clothe, and feed North Korean refugees in China. This combined approach is aimed at reaching the most vulnerable North Koreans who remain or are trapped inside North Korea, as well as those who have fled to a less-than-safe haven in China. HHK also supports a number of "secret orphanages" for North Korean children in China, providing shelter, food, clothing, and a rudimentary basic education as they hide from authorities. In cases where no viable alternative exists, these young refugees are aided along the “underground railroad” to safety in surrounding countries for eventual resettlement in South Korea.

More on the North Korean refugee situation: Timothy Peters' October 27th testimony before the House Committee on International Relations

Advocacy for North Korean refugees

HHK Director Tim Peters has given Congressional testimony in Washington DC on a number of occasions and sat on other expert panels (e.g. American Enterprise Institute) in an advocacy role for North Korean human rights and humanitarian aid community. In January 2002, the work of Helping Hands Korea was first mentioned in a presentation before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in the testimony of noted author and expert on North Korean issues, Chuck Downs. Two months after Mr. Peters' first testimony on North Korea before the International Relations Committee (Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific) together with other activists, the House of Representatives passed by a remarkable margin (406-0) a very strongly worded Resolution of rebuke to China regarding the plight of North Korean refugees in that country and activists that are imprisoned there for assisting the refugees.

In April of 2004, Tim Peters again provided testimony before the House of Representatives International Relations Committee (Subcommittee for Asia and the Pacific), relating the experience of HHK's activities of rescuing North Korean refugees in China, as well as outlining challenges that face the humanitarian community delivering aid inside North Korea. This written testimony before the Committee hearing is essentially the same paper that was written at the request of the World Economic Forum in early 2004, which asked Mr. Peters to address current conditions of North Korean refugees in China, to outline the best-case and worst-case scenarios for the coming years, and finally to provide his policy recommendations for resolving this thorny problem in Northeast Asia. In October of 2005, Tim again appeared before the House Committee on International Relations.

The Christian and humanitarian activism of Helping Hands Korea and Peters have been featured in the global media, with special profiles in Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek (Asia), Washington Times, BBC, NPR, ABC’s Nightline, Korea Herald, Korea Times and the 2004 documentary production by Incite Productions, Seoul Train. The work of HHK is also mentioned in the novel, Tiger in the Shadows by Deborah Wilson (2004).

Real life rescue stories

Real Life Story — China Releases Human Rights Activist — Chun's release after only 8 months of imprisonment required us to put feet to our prayers...(click here for full story)

Real Life Story - Operation: God's Sparrows - Four young North Korean refugees reached the safety of a foreign consulate in China...(click here for full story)

Real Life Story — Who Was Yoo Chul Min? — And Why Does it Matter? — A 10-year-old N. Korean made a sobering decision light years away from most 4th graders... (click here for full story)

The founder-president of the Stand Today organization, Kristin Wright, wrote the following in a newsletter to her readership:

Have you ever wondered what life is like for orphans in North Korea? Maybe not, but now is the perfect time to find out! While in Washington DC last week, I met up with a close friend of mine, Tim Peters. Tim works tirelessly to bring food and aid to North Korean refugees, and just happened to be at the same meeting of the North Korea Freedom Coalition as I was last Wednesday. After the meeting, he showed me some actual footage of starving orphans in the DPRK. This video [“Children of the Secret State”] was taken secretly by a former refugee, who risked his life to bring the plight of NK orphans to the world.

I stayed moderately composed for about the first 3 minutes of the film. But then the camera turned and I saw a child about the same age as my little brother Andrew. He was shivering all alone, and I could see all of the horrific results of starvation. He could not speak for himself, but I thought of what my own little brother would feel in such a situation. Rejected, abandoned, destitute, unloved and uncared for. I broke down right then, because suddenly this child wasn't only one of the 200,000 orphans of North Korea, he was my own little brother -- and no less deserving of my affection and help.

Short documentary, Flight from North Korea, paints in stark colors the fate of most North Koreans today as they face famine and tyranny in their own homeland as well as the twin specters of exploitation & repatriation if they dare to flee to China. Helping Hands Korea founder, Tim Peters, narrates this highly-charged probe into the agony and occasional ecstasy of the North Korean refugee experience.

Seoul Train, a gripping documentary with riveting footage of the secretive Underground Railroad, exposure to the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland and China.

CNN: Undercover in the Secret State
CNN aired "Undercover in the Secret State" a documentary which follows Korean-American journalist Jung Eun Kim as she tracks down a new breed of dissident in North Korea. These dissidents are using small digital cameras and cell phones to show the world the brutal life inside North Korea. Images include a public execution, a concentration camp housing political prisoners, and villagers gather on a hillside to watch a firing-squad execution of a man accused of helping a defector cross into China.

The Wall Street Journal: Prisoner Nation
300,000 North Koreans have defected to China, risking their lives to flee the mass starvation and brutal oppression of Kim Jong Il’s Stalinist regime. Sadly, Beijing’s official policy is to arrest the refugees and forcibly return them to North Korea, where they face imprisonment, torture and in some cases execution.

The Sunday Times: On the death or freedom trail with Kim's starving fugitives
North Korean refugees in China are fleeing a living hell. Their hope is a quiet American missionary called Tim Peters. He is the man who runs what Christians call the “Seoul Train” and it was his emissary I had met in Yanji. Peters founded Helping Hands Korea, a full-time escape organization of a web of Korean helpers extending across Asia. Peters lobbies diplomats, uses charm and moral pressure on bureaucrats and has testified with fine biblical indignation to the US Congress.

Korea Herald: North Korean Conduit: Rewarding risk-takers
North Korean refugees who are caught by Chinese authorities and sent back to their native land are not just numbers, but men, women and children who Tim Peters meets and grieves over. Working as a conductor in the underground railroad that helps North Korean defectors settle in China and even escape to third countries is a heartbreaking and sometimes exhausting experience. But it is also satisfying when he finally sees defectors smile and at peace after spending years afraid of being repatriated and possibly facing a firing squad for their actions.

Toronto Globe and Mail: Desperate refugees storm Canada's Beijing embassy
Disguised as construction workers, 44 desperate North Korean refugees scaled the walls of the Canadian embassy in Beijing using makeshift ladders, throwing Canada and China into a diplomatic standoff. It was a daylight operation, one of the boldest and most daring in Beijing's recent history. "The refugees are ever more desperate," said Tim Peters, an American Christian aid worker in South Korea who helps North Korean refugees. "The crackdown in China is becoming more severe all the time."

Christian Science Monitor: North Korean refugees arrive in Seoul
The largest single group of defectors from North Korea - 450 people - arrived in South Korea by jumbo jet from Vietnam. The flights to safety for the refugees are regarded as a breakthrough by activists and human-rights sources in Asia, though it does not necessarily auger any kind of mass migration from a society as controlled as the North; or from China, where many now live hide-and-seek lives. Moreover, South Korea's official acceptance of its kinfolk appeared to be agreed upon only after the numbers of refugees in Vietnam rose too high to ignore. "I'm thrilled. This is what we've been hoping for," said activist Tim Peters of the group "Helping Hands" in Seoul. "About 400 people with no light at the end of their tunnel have suddenly been given a new life."

Washington Post: N. Korean Women Find Life of Abuse Waiting in China
300,000 N. Korean refugees are now living illegally in China, roughly half of them women. While the men work as cheap labor, the women are sold into service as sexual slaves or suffer other kinds of sexual or physical abuse, often inside entertainment clubs. Since the UN is not involved with N. Korean refugees, any assistance for these unfortunates originates from aid workers like Tim Peters, who do their work in China without Beijing's permission or cooperation.

The Washington Times: North Korean refugees get harsh treatment on return
An increasing number of North Korean refugees are fleeing to China, where they are detained and sent back to face harsh treatment in their home country, according to Tim Peters, a human rights activist from the region and founder of Helping Hands Korea. Mr. Peters added that many of the aid workers helping North Koreans who flee to China are Christians. "Most are strongly motivated by their Christian faith.”

The Korea Herald: Catacombs Seek Support for North Korea Refugees
Like the Christians of old, a group of humanitarian activists meet regularly in the Catacombs where they exchange information on human rights abuses and try help North Korean refugees. The Catacombs is a casual weekly forum for activists led by Tim Peters, who has been involved in helping North Korean refugees since 1998 through the Helping Hands Korea organization he founded.

Voice of America: Congress Hears Testimony About North Korean Human Rights Issues
A call for China to guarantee humane treatment of North Korean refugees. Tim Peters, director of Helping Hands Korea, presented a list of aid workers jailed by Chinese authorities in connection with helping North Korean asylum-seekers, and referred to a recent incident in which a NK was reported killed. "A new threshold was crossed where a North Korean refugee was shot at the border," he said. "Quite possibly others were wounded."

Korea Times: Refugees in China Get a Helping Hand
What is it that makes a person reach out to someone they've never met before, to lend a helping hand, despite the presence of peril? There are a number of answers - charity, goodwill, and common humanity to name a few. American Tim Peters plays a key role in getting the word out about what is going on and getting aid and support to North Koreans who need it most.

Resolution 217: Human Rights Groups Call for Justice for North Korean Refugees
While celebrating the release of S. Korean photojournalist Seok Jae-hyun from jail in China, Resolution217 and Helping Hands Korea called on the Chinese government to adhere to international law and United Nations’ human rights standards by protecting North Korean asylum seekers and by releasing the humanitarian aid workers still imprisoned.

Australia Broadcasting Company: Nowhere to Run
Many North Koreans risk attempting to flee their country, crossing the border to China, which doesn't recognize the desperate invaders as refugees. Seoul-based Tim Peters believes the UNHCR is failing completely in its responsibility to these N. Korean refugees.

The Wall Street Journal: Unwelcome Truths
South Korea's constitution requires it to welcome any North Korean who wants to come to the South. Yet in the 50 years since the end of the Korean War, the South has accepted fewer than 3,000 refugees, most in the last 2 years. "I don't mean to sound mercenary," says Tim Peters, "But in some respects running into a consulate in China is cost effective [since] smuggling a refugee out through Mongolia or Vietnam costs $1,000 to $3,000 per person.

New York Times: China Offers Bounty on N. Korean Refugees - Activist
"China is offering bounty payments to its citizens who denounce North Korean refugees, and the missionaries and aid workers helping them seek asylum in foreign embassies," says human rights activist Tim Peters.

Chosun Journal: Interview with Tim Peters
Visiting safehouses filled with children who look nine or ten years old but who are 15 to 18 definitely has an effect on anyone, especially if you happen to be a father as I am...

Newsweek: Food for the Starving in North Korea
More than 3 million N. Korean residents have died of starvation during the last five years, and the number of North Korean defectors exceed 100,000. As long as this reality prevails, I will go wherever they are,” Tim Peters says...

When his schedule allows, Tim Peters accepts invitations to speak in churches to share the plight of North Korean refugees in China and elsewhere.

An evening with North Korean refugees

In collaboration with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Helping Hands Korea presented “An Evening with North Korean Refugees.” During dinner a packed dining room watched excerpts from Ms. Kim Jung-eun’s internationally recognized and awarded video documentary, Hidden Lives, a riveting journal presented on ABC News Nightline of the tragic plight of North Korean refugees in China.

Tim then gave a brief overview outlining Helping Hands Korea’s two initiatives:
(a) Christian humanitarian aid to the impoverished inside North Korea and
(b) emergency support for North Koreans living in extreme danger in China.

Three former North Korean refugees then shared with the audience their heartbreaking testimonies of life inside North Korea’s reign of terror and the desperate circumstances they face in eluding manhunts by Chinese police.

The hauntingly sweet songs by former North Korean refugee, as she accompanies herself on the ancient Korean instrument the kayageum, reminded everyone of the sadness that resides in the heart of every North Korean until all their people are rescued from hunger and tyranny.

The three testimonies given by recently-arrived refugees were ably translated by our longtime friend and ally in efforts to rescue North Koreans, Mr. Kim Sang-hun. [Mr. Kim Sang-hun was honored by TIME magazine (April 28th, 2003) as one of its Asian Heroes for 2003.]

Throughout the evening, local artists exhibited their original art, which turned out to be the most successful source of charity fundraising that evening.

Musical headliners from Ireland Andrea Rice & Fee Dobbin were the featured musicians for the evening’s program.

Relief Updates:

Tim Peters addressing an audience at the
General Meeting of the IPCNKR in Japan.

Tim (center) with fellow activists at a Freedom
House conference in Washington DC.

Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea joined Japanese activist Hiroshi Kato (who has spent time in a Chinese prison), Kim Sang Hun (senior activist in the underground railroad for the refugees), and Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, to visit the regional UNHCR office in Tokyo. They delivered a letter pointing out the UNHCR’s failure to live up to its mandate in China to protect North Korean refugees.

Helping Hands Korea continued its monthly commitment to Schindler's Club, aptly named to describe the work of funding and assisting in the rescue of N. Korean refugees. To date, the Schindler's Club has assisted 200 NK refugees in making it safely out of China and to South Korea.

Tim during a Congressional testimony

Tim with NK refugees, now in S. Korea

Tim participated in a press conference in the Foreign Correspondents Club in Japan regarding the attempt to evacuate the North Korean refugee “boat people” from China to South Korea. Tim’s comments on the plight of North Korean refugees and their persecution were covered by the New York Times, USA TODAY and other major media, both print and TV.

Tim undertook a fascinating five-day fact-finding trip to Mongolia with two others to scout out the potential for a new initiative that would safely bring more North Korean refugees to safety from peril in China. Due to various propitious circumstances and introductions, I (Tim) was able to have private meetings with the State Secretary (Vice Minister) of the Mongolian Foreign Ministry and the new Korean ambassador to Mongolia, as well as the resident representative of the Asia Foundation.

During a two day trip to the south of Ulan Baator, we drove a total of 30 hours in a rugged rented Russian van to explore the possibilities of renovating abandoned apartment blocks (see photo) from the Soviet era to house an influx of N. Korean refugees that many of us feel are assuredly coming. I had written about this possibility almost three years ago in a grant proposal entitled Operation Underground Railroad, so it was particularly fascinating for me to see these building personally and realize that the foundations and structures are strong although vandalism has been responsible for all the windows being broken and the insides of the apartments' being torn up. Nevertheless, it would be quite economical to get them livable in a relatively short time.

Another aid trip was made to the PRC side of the North Korean border, Tim leading two young mission-minded Americans to the area, who are considering greater involvement in assisting refugees.It was also a chance to gauge the tense situation on the border, give donations to projects that assist in feeding NK middle school orphans, as well as to those helping refugees in China.

Tim made a four-day trip from Seoul to the China/North Korean border area with members of another NGO to provide direct aid to 22 newly arrived refugees. The key part of our assistance was to find and rent two apartments for a period of three months to give temporary shelter to the refugees in the coldest months, and getting them set up with winter clothing, blankets, kitchen utensils, portable gas ranges and sundries.

We briefed various Ambassadors to Korea with a general overview of the NK refugee situation in China and conditions near the China/NK border.

Archive articles: Helping Hands Korea

Providing a Ton of Aid for North Korea is not Heavy Lifting (Acrobat version - 230k)

Chosun Ilbo Newspaper -- May 7, 2001

Newsweek (Korean edition) February 7, 2001

The Korea Herald -- April 28, 2000

The Korea Herald -- November 15, 1999

The Korea Herald -- October 25, 1999

The Korea Herald -- March 12, 1999

Jazz Artist's Band Plays Charity Gig for Ton-a-Month Club

Return to top of this page