Two defectors shared their stories about their lives in North Korea at an event in London hosted by the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea.
 
Speaking at the Houses of Parliament in London on Wednesday, one of the women, Park Yeon-mi, touched on being a part of the Jangmadang Generation, referring to the generation in the North that has grown up with the "black market." 
 
The 21-year-old, who has settled in Seoul after defecting to Mongolia in 2009, said because her generation has been exposed to the market economy, the North is changing from the bottom up. She added that her generation does not take the regime’s propaganda word for word.
 
She then urged the international community to take more of an interest in North Korean defectors and the human rights situation in the North.
 
Also speaking on Wednesday, Park Ji-hyun, who was born in North Korea in the 1960s and now lives in the U.K., shared her experience as a defector which included being a victim of human trafficking in China and being repatriated back to the North.