NEW YORK (GZERO MEDIA) - Defector Yeonmi Park describes why she left home and how she escaped North Korea.

"In the hospital, we saw so many bodies... we could see rats eating the humans," she recounts. She says that was when she and her mother decided they wanted to leave in search of a better life.

She survived becoming a victim of human trafficking and walking across the Gobi Desert, and is now a human rights activist in the United States.

This video, part of a special series by GZERO World, is made available to The Straits Times under a partnership with GZERO Media, a subsidiary of the Eurasia Group.