The failure of the international community to engage in reciprocal diplomatic relations with and to tackle the human rights abuses in North Korea is inherently connected to the failure of the international community to engage the voices that would ensure progress in these areas: the voices of the North Korean people and not just of the system.

North Korean Memoirs is a multifaceted platform created by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea to support North Korean agency and voice beyond the system’s control. Through interviews, written memoirs, online events, Q&As, lectures, debates, and discussions, North Korean Memoirs will act as a focal point of our work to document and disseminate the unedited and unframed voices of North Koreans, allowing us to integrate their voices in to all aspects of our research, policy and advocacy work.

Through targeted on- and offline events, North Korean Memoirs will work to build awareness and correct understanding of the complexity and roots of the human rights situation in North Korea. These events will also help build bridges of understanding between North Koreans and Westerners. Such a platform will help empower North Koreans by creating the conditions to give them a legitimate voice beyond the surveillance of the system, which has been all too often missing in non-Korean language settings.

Much of the existing reporting and literature on North Korea in English is managed in such a way that it strangles the voice and agency of North Koreans. The output upholds the existing external and superficial perceptions of North Korea. To encourage other approaches, our North Korean staff members will conduct and publish interviews with North Koreans and also organise the writing of memoirs by North Koreans now free to speak about their world and experiences of life in North Korea.

In order to ensure that North Korean Memoirs remains a platform of empowerment for North Korean voices, the content will be managed, coordinated and created by North Koreans. By managing the project in that manner, North Korean Memoirs will become a manifestation of our belief that an empowered North Korean people in control of their own voices and agency will be the ones to lead change in North Korea.