Preview - Children of the Secret State: North Korea

Children of the Secret State: North Korea

Purchase Options

Title Information

Tell a Friend

Children of the Secret State: North Korea (46:00)

Item# 32945
©2000

This revealing documentary contains clandestine video footage shot at great personal risk by a North Korean known as Ahn Chol and by journalists posing as tourists. Through interviews with street children, refugees, and former prisoners, this program explores the plight of youth in the last remaining Stalinist dictatorship and perhaps the most secretive state on the planet. From Pyongyang, to the China/North Korea border, to South Korea, to the infamous prison camps, the cameras expose the truth behind the wall of secrecy that hides a record of 3 million reported starvation deaths in the last decade and hundreds of thousands of children with nowhere to call home. Some content may be objectionable. A Discovery Channel Production. (46 minutes)

Segments in this Video - (13)

1. Secret Video (02:07)

Available for Free Preview

Photographer Ahn Chol risks his life to film secret video of orphans and street children in North Korea, in order to expose their desperate plight to the world.

2. An Unnamed Town (02:41)

In this North Korean town there is food on the black market, but only crumbs for orphan boys. Adults who are eating ignore the hungry children as they forage for food in garbage.

3. Pyongyang Tour (03:06)

Posing as a tourist, Joe Layburn tours monuments glorifying Kim Jong and his son. He receives propaganda from both the tour guide and television programs lauding Kim Jong II.

4. Pyongyang and Beyond (04:14)

Although Pyongyang is described as a bustling metropolis, the streets are deserted. Ahn Chol interviews a malnourished orphan girl in another part of the country.

5. Children's Palace (03:00)

Children favored by Kim Jong II are seen as little kings and queens, the country's future. Beyond the Children's Palace, the camera captures images of North Korean orphans.

6. Chinese-North Korean Border (01:56)

The crew illegally films footage of the border and escaping North Koreans. China deports hundreds of refugees each week back to North Korea.

7. Chinese Border Town (03:00)

North Korean refugees attempt to hide among ethnic Chinese trying to blend in. A family of refugees describes what life in North Korea was like before their escape.

8. Desperate Measures (04:26)

Desperation has led many North Korean orphans to risk the river to escape to China while hunger has pushed some in North Korea to cannibalism.

9. Idle Factories and Inadequate Care for Orphans (04:34)

Industry in a city of 200,000 is shut down; the only signs of life are military exercises. Children in North Korean government hostels are denied food and medical care and often left to die.

10. Illegal Drug Crop (02:49)

A refugee farmer talks about the opium crop he is ordered to grow. North Korea's revenue from illegal drugs is estimated to be as much as one billion dollars annually.

11. Dissident Exiles (01:29)

Lee Young-Hwa leads a group of North Korean exiles based in Japan. The group wants to replace Kim Jong II with a democratic leader.

12. South Korea (05:55)

In Seoul, two prison camp escapees, a former North Korean prison guard and a prisoner, give examples of brutality at their camp.

13. Aid to North Korea and Human Rights (03:46)

Aid agencies are pulling out of North Korea because the government won't allow them to see where aid is going. Ahn Chol plans to continue bringing the world's attention to their plight.