Female North Korean soldiers participate in a military parade in Pyongyang.
24 years ago, 17-year-old girl Lee So Yeon volunteered to enlist in the North Korean army.
On her first day in the army, young woman Yeon was happy when she was given a hair dryer.
To this day, Yeon still clearly remembers the sweaty smell of more than 10 people who rarely showered, clinging to the straw mattresses in a room filled with bunk beds at the concrete barracks.
`We sweated quite a lot. All the body odor stuck to the straw mattress. That smell was not pleasant,` Yeon recalled.
Yeon and more than 10 other female teammates crowded into a room.
`One of the most difficult things for us at that time was not being able to bathe regularly,` Yeon said.
Yeon recalls that all soldiers, male and female, went through the same training program.
The harsh training program combined with meager food rations caused Yeon and many of her female teammates to physically weaken.
During Yeon’s time, women joined the army voluntarily.
A female North Korean soldier stationed at a unit near the Yalu River in 2014. Photo: Reuters.
Yeon left the army at the age of 28, when she held the rank of sergeant at a unit near the border with South Korea.
During her first escape, she was arrested at the border with China and had to spend a year in a re-education camp.
Statistics show that nearly 70% of North Korean defectors are women.
