It’s the day of the annual Pulmuggol Festival at Sang-Incheon Middle School in Incheon, west of Seoul. One of the events on the agenda is a presentation by two North Korean defectors.

Interspersed with interactive quizzes and video clips, the defector talk covers many typical North Korea topics – from synchronized dances to labor camps.

But the room is full of chatter and 25-year-old defector and university student Kim Su-ryeon is struggling to make her voice heard. During a video clip on the North Korean labor camp system, more than half the students are occupied with something else, unmoved by