'Strip in front of men': North Korean defector describes being selected as 'pleasure squad' candidate

A North Korean defector has drawn attention with her account of being selected and monitored as a teenage candidate for North Korea's so-called "pleasure squad."

A video titled "The shocking pleasure squad selection process — do you really have to show your naked body to be chosen?" was recently posted to the Han Song-i TV YouTube channel, run by defector Han Song-i.

Kim Seo-a, a defector who appears in the video, said officials from the Korean Workers' Party Central Committee would visit schools in Pyongyang to identify and recruit tall, attractive students. "They kept selecting girls and monitoring how they developed. I was picked too," she said. From age 17, she said, she visited the Central Committee roughly once a week. "There wasn't much to do — officials would check your face. I didn't have to study, so that part was nice," she added.

She said the pool of candidates was gradually narrowed through a series of evaluations. "At some point, girls started getting cut, and that year 10 were left nationwide," she said.

Kim said she was among the final 10, who were taken together to a hospital in Pyongyang used by senior officials for a group physical examination that included a gynecological exam. She said the gynecological portion included a virginity test.

"It was my first time ever going to a gynecologist," she said. "The 10 of us undressed and were examined in front of men." She said being in a group made the experience feel less humiliating, but recalled hesitating when told to undress — prompting a man to shout, "Hey, is something wrong? Take it off." She laughed recounting the moment.

"I think about five men came in," Kim said. "They had us turn to face forward, then turn around, and they looked for blemishes on our bodies — they paid a lot of attention to the chest and hips."

Kim said she believes the pleasure squad still exists today. "It's still there. I understand it disappeared briefly and then came back — it can't just be abolished," she said. She recalled the anxiety she felt at the time: "I was on edge worrying I'd be taken. My family was terrified they might never see me again."

"I was afraid of not seeing my parents, but I also thought: if joining the pleasure squad meant my parents could live comfortably, maybe I should go," she said. She added that membership typically lasts 10 years, and that refusing a summons could mean being expelled from Pyongyang.

Kim also said the group was known inside North Korea as "Section 5," not the "pleasure squad." "After coming to South Korea, I saw videos calling it the pleasure squad and describing them as 'Kim Jong-il's women' — I was shocked," she said.