"Most of the North Koreans we spoke with said they were fleeing poverty and food shortages. One girl in her early 20s said she had been told she could find work in the computer industry in China. After being smuggled across the Tumen River, she found herself working with computers, but not in the way she had expected. She became one of a growing number of North Korean women who are being used as Internet sex workers, undressing for online clients on streaming video. Some defectors appeared more nervous about being interviewed than others. But they all agreed that their lives in China, while stark, were better than what they had left behind in North Korea."

— Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee opened up today about their ordeal in North Korea. They were finally able to report the story that led them to the border in the first place, of desperate women who flee North Korea only to be forced into the sex trade or arranged marriages once they get to China. In the article, the pair also describes being dragged into North Korea from Chinese soil by North Korean soldiers.