The Korean American Students Association political board hosted a screening of the documentary “Hiding,” made by the humanitarian organization Liberty in North Korea, in the Class of 1970 Theatre in Whitman College on Thursday night. After the screening, North Korean defector Jinhae Jo recounted her experience escaping from North Korea to China and eventually to the United States.

LiNK representative Angelica Metoyer introduced the event by encouraging support for the organization’s TheHundred Campaign, which aims to raise enough money to financially support the defection of 100 North Koreans and increase awareness related to the struggles of North Korean defectors. According to Metoyer, it costs about $2,500 to bring a refugee from China to safety. The cost to rescue a defector from North Korea is at least $6,000.

In her introduction, Metoyer also noted that the majority of discussion surrounding North Korea centers on nuclear proliferation, ignoring tragic human issues such as starvation, political prison camps and sex trafficking.

The documentary, “Hiding,” follows five North Korean refugees on their journey out of China and illustrates the hardships they face not only in escaping North Korea but also in traveling in China and other countries, where they are forced to remain underground. If caught, defectors are often sent back to North Korea, where they are put in political prisons or killed.

Following the film, Jo spoke about her own personal journey to freedom. As Jo does not speak English, her talk was translated by a member of KASA.

Jo’s defection required several attempts before she finally reached safety in the United States. Of seven family members, only three survived attempts to escape. Her father was caught trying to get food from China and charged with treason, eventually dying of hunger in a political prison. Her mother miscarried once, and another of her younger siblings died of hunger in Jo’s arms. Her grandmother also died of hunger. Her sister left for China as a virgin at the age of 18 and was sold into the sex trade in China.

Several other family members died on the journey out, attempting to survive by eating bamboo powder, corn roots and even rats and snakes.

Aside from Jo, only her mother and sister survived. Jo was captured several times and repatriated to North Korea. She was also thrown in prison, where she was beaten, starved and tortured.

Jo in particular noted the importance of raising awareness about the plight of women and children. She said women suffer in North Korean prisons due not only to instances of sexual abuse but also because of their treatment during their menstrual cycles: Because they are only given one piece of clothing, they cannot even use cloth. Pregnant women are beaten until they miscarry.

Children are equally helpless, she said, as they are too weak to survive the strong currents necessary to crossing the river into China. Many are sent to orphanages where they starve to death because they are only given three or four potatoes that are “smaller than a baby’s fist” daily.

It is important for college students to speak out, Jo said.

“When older people hear about tragedies, they cry because they do not have the ability to do something,” she said. “When younger people hear, they think about what they can do. If enough people had known about this, it would not have gotten this bad.”

Jo said that it would help if young people spread the word, because it is harder to ignore young people. When she lectured at Harvard, she said, she received threats from North Korea. North Korean officials had mostly ignored her when she spoke at churches, she added.

Sungwoo Chon ’13, the former political chair of the Asian American Students Association, asked Jo if “there will be some sort of movement against the North Korean government by the people.”

Jo explained that children of the elite in Pyongyang study abroad, where they gain a broader world view. Two hundred such students once wanted to protest, but all were killed on the morning of the protest because one was a spy, she explained.

Another student wanted to organize mass protests but lacked funds for an organized uprising, so he defected to South Korea to raise resources and is now in the United States, Jo added.

“So with the necessary funds, I believe that it will happen,” she said.

KASA’s political board and the LiNK chair said they were working to get University students more involved.

“We started a chapter [of LiNK at Princeton],” Grace Kim ’13 and Ewon Baik ’13, co-political chairs of KASA, said in an interview. “We feel that KASA political board’s mission is to really raise awareness of the political situation in the Koreas. We’re also going to work on more events [to raise awareness].”

Baik is also a photographer for The Daily Princetonian.

Jo expressed similar sentiments, saying, “If students took the money from the cost of one cup of coffee, one cigarette, buying a less-expensive designer item, and took that money and helped people, then if 1,000 people are dying and we save even 99 people, it would be worth it.”