Escape From Camp 14 Sparknotes

Nightmarish Treatment of Prisoners in North Korean Prison Camps

Innocent people are being starved and tortured in secret North Korean camps that the government are trying to hide from the rest of the world. These prisoners are being deprived of nutritious meals, and are being forced to scavenge for barely enough food. These poor people are being deprived of basic human rights, and no person has let anybody know about it, until now.

In 2013, Blaine Harden revealed the true story of Shin Dong-Hyuk, through the novel Escape From Camp 14. Shin was raised in Camp 14, a secret prison camp located in North Korea. Harden illustrates how Shin grew up, how he grew up with a lack of affection for his family, how he viewed them as competitors for

food. Harden thoroughly describes how the camp prisoners had to work hard labor, like animals, in the mines and fields for their daily food rations.

The food rations were extremely small, definitely not enough to properly sustain the prisoners with the amount of daily hard work that they had to endure. Their meals usually consisted of one bowl of cabbage soup, a meal definitely not large nor nutritious enough to sustain the overworked prisoners, and barely enough to sustain a child. Shin recounts to Harden about how he had to become proficient in catching and eating rats and insects when food rations were scarce, and even how he even rummaged through animal droppings for undigested kernels of corn. “In the school cafeteria, he scrounged constantly for spilled cabbage soup, dipping his hand in cold dirty soup that had spilled on the floor and licking his fingers clean. He searched floors, roads, and fields for grains of rice, beans, or cow dung that contained

undigested kernels of corn,” (72). While reading about the severe lengths that Shin went to obtain enough rations, and about how hard he worked in the fields of Camp 14, Escape From Camp 14 really caused me to question the North Korean lifestyle and my very little knowledge of it. The novel influenced me to investigate the drastic malnutrition and severe hunger that the North Korean government is attempting to conceal from the rest of the modern world.
While researching texts written about malnutrition and hunger in North Korea, especially in North Korean prison camps, I found few authors who published articles about the starving population of the secretive state. The authors that I did find, though, discussed problems leading to the nation-wide hunger, including a lack of ability to produce nutritious food, the ignorance of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and even the nightmarish treatment of prisoners in secret prison camps. In one article, the author comments upon the hunger of children in North Korea, "In a newly released report, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the number of North Korean children being treated for severe acute malnutrition jumped by 38 percent in 2014 compared to the previous year,” (1). The author states that the hunger found in North Korean children is coinciding with the severe drought that the country is suffering in, and that the country therefore has an inability to produce enough food to support the population.
A different source again identifies the source of the country's nationwide hunger as the lack of capability to produce enough food from harvests, especially while in the grave drought that North Korea is suffering through. “Total food production is estimated at about 5.03 million metric tons (including milled rice) in 2013, which is about a 5 percent increase over the previous year. Despite the improved harvest, the food security situation is still unsatisfactory with 84 percent of households having borderline or poor food consumption,” (1).
Another author blames Kim Jong-un for North Korea’s problems.

“Kim Jong-un has proudly shown off a new airport terminal selling duty-free Mars Bars and beer - despite the fact that his nation is starving in a terrible drought,” (1). This statement shows me that the leader of North Korea is spending funds on new airports instead of nourishment for his nation. This action shows even in Camp 14, where the prisoners could really use imported cereal grains to give the laborers enough carbohydrates to sustain their harsh lifestyle.

One article in particular stood out to me, for its content was an interview of a woman who escaped from a secret North Korean prison camp with her son, very much like Shin had. The article illustrates the life of the mother during her time in the camp, especially her diet. “It was unspeakably bad. The whole of North Korea is one big prison. People are all hungry. And now, there aren't even rats, snakes or wild plants left for them to eat,” (1). This statement in particular reminds me of the diet that Shin had while he was in Camp

14.
All of the texts that I found over malnutrition and hunger in North Korea furthered my knowledge on the country and its people. All of the texts informed me as to why Shin never had enough food, and why he had to eat what he did, and why his degree of hunger wasn't strange to everyone around him in Camp 14. It’s because everyone else in North Korea is starving as well. It’s because North Korea is in a major drought, and because harvests aren't producing enough nutritious food, and maybe even because Kim Jong-un is turning a blind eye to his nation's problems. People in North Korea, especially those in prison camps, are in desperate need of enough food to sustain them, and enough nutritious food to keep them healthy.
Hunger and malnutrition is not only a major problem found in North Korea, but it is found all over the world, even in more-developed countries such as the United States, where people has access to plentiful amounts of nutritious food. Hunger is a worldwide problem that affects everybody. If you would like to put a stop to hunger, go to www.stopthehunger.com to see what you can do in your community to make a difference.