Finding safety often proves to be life-threatening. Upon crossing the North Korea-China border, North Koreans must once again flee to prevent capture by Chinese authorities who send them back to North Korea where they face imprisonment, harsh labor, torture or even execution.

From China, refugees must traverse the underground railroad to find one of the many routes to freedom: either north through Mongolia or south through Southeast Asia. Refugees have come through China, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Mongolia, Cambodia and even Russia.

A typical journey often involves climbing thousands of feet or hiking for hours through unfriendly borders, endless deserts and uncertain terrain such as jungles and leech-infested streams and traveling by foot, bus or boat. Ironically, many of the paths being used today in the underground are also the same routes used for drug trafficking. Once refugees make it out of China they quickly seek asylum at a foreign embassy or consulate.

As an alternative method that was more frequently used years ago, North Korean refugees in China rushed and scaled embassy walls in an attempt to reach safety and asylum on foreign soil. However, in recent years, China has reinforced security with additional barbed wire fences and paramilitary forces around its foreign embassies.

Whichever route is chosen, North Korean families are often separated during the escape, leaving children abandoned and women particularly at risk of being sexually trafficked and sold along the way.

Though the odds may seem against us, through our strategic partnerships and on-the-ground efforts, we believe our goal to bring 100 North Korean refugees out can be reached.

But our work won’t end there. More refugees in the underground will await the opportunity for freedom, while those who have made it through will continue to need our assistance, resources and support to begin their new lives. We remain hopeful that as refugees arrive for resettlement, they will be empowered to pursue their dreams, like our friends Joseph and Jane.