I was kidnapped by North Korea
Hitomi Soga was 19 when she and her mother disappeared from a Japanese island. Decades later, the world learned she had been abducted by North Korean agents.
In the 1970s and 80s, a spate of mysterious disappearances were reported along Japan鈥檚 coast. One of those was 19-year-old nurse Hitomi Soga, who was walking with her mother when they were kidnapped. She was blindfolded and dragged to a boat destined to the world's most secretive state, North Korea. But why was she taken? Hitomi's stay in North Korea would last 24 years and include a forced marriage to America's most well-known defector, Charles Jenkins. The world watched when eventually she returned home, still desperate to uncover the truth about the mother who vanished with her into the darkness.
Australia's Alice Glenn and her friend Heidi Barrett turned their living room lights off and danced like no-one was watching. A few years later they had turned dancing in the dark into a global community called No Lights No Lycra. Joel Carnegie spoke to Alice in March 2017.
Presenter: Asya Fouks
Translation: Nancy Roberts
Voiceover: Yoko Gravestock
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
(Photo: Hitomi Soga and Charles Jenkins on their wedding day in North Korea in 1980. Credit: Courtesy of Hitomi Soga)
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