The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) has spent over two decades documenting the testimonies of escapees, mapping sites of detention and torture, and building one of the world’s most comprehensive archives on human rights abuses in North Korea. In a time when global attention to these violations is waning, NKDB’s work raises critical questions: how do you memorialize an issue that is ongoing, not past? How do you ensure that victims’ voices are not only recorded, but heard in the pursuit of justice? And how do you hold perpetrators accountable when impunity seems entrenched? This talk will explore NKDB’s unique role in South Korea as both a guardian of memory and an advocate for accountability. It will discuss the challenges of sustaining activism for an issue many consider “forgotten,” the importance of documentation in transitional justice, and the responsibility of civil society to amplify the voices of those who cannot speak freely for themselves.
