North Korean Defector Wins Symbolic Damages from Kim Jong-un in Historic Lawsuit

In a landmark case, Choi Min-kyeong, a 55-year-old former North Korean citizen and president of the Imprisonment Victims' Family Association, sued Kim Jong-un for the torture and sexual assault she suffered under the regime. The Seoul Central District Court ruled in her favor in August 2025, awarding the full 50 million won she requested as a symbolic gesture. Choi’s harrowing background includes surviving a mid-1990s famine, fleeing across the Tuman River, and being captured during a nationwide Chinese crackdown on defectors around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after which she was repatriated and detained for five months.

She later endured further abuse in a Hoeryong re-education camp before receiving amnesty in September 2010. While collecting the award from Kim is unlikely, Choi aims to seize it from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund pending a Supreme Court decision, and she urges stronger South Korean action and international prosecution of the North Korean regime.