“Ask a North Korean” is an NK News series featuring interviews with and columns by North Korean defectors, most of whom left the DPRK within the last few years.

Readers may submit their questions for defectors by emailing [email protected] and including their first name and city of residence.

Today’s question is about how a North Korean propagandist went from warning fellow citizens not to be seduced into defecting to escaping to South Korea herself.

Soo-ah — who was born and raised in North Korea and defected in 2015 — writes about her work as a party propagandist, the power that