She fled North Korea but was sold to a man in China. Her second escape came nearly 20 years later.

Seoul, South Korea CNN —

Chae-ran sets the plate of sliced oranges and dragon fruit on the floor, a few feet from the pile of bedding where she sleeps.

At 35 years old she is starting over again, alone in a foreign country, without so much as a photograph or letter from her old life – just a sparse room with bare white walls. But it’s home, and the first place she’s had to herself after a life lived in the shadows.

Chae-ran is among a number of women who fled North Korea – only to be trafficked and sexually exploited in China, where a gender imbalance has created a black market for brides.

She managed to stage a second escape nearly two decades later, through Laos and Thailand. But opportunities for others to take the same path have narrowed since the pandemic, experts say – leaving untold numbers of North Korean girls and women trapped in servitude.

CNN is identifying Chae-ran by a pseudonym for the safety of her family back in North Korea – and the son she left behind in China.

Chae-ran's bedroom in her new home, furnished with help from churches and local organizations in South Korea.

Escape and exploitation

Chae-ran made her first escape after finishing high school.She’d been assigned a job at a coal mine, like her father and most people in their village near the Chinese border – but the teenager didn’t want to spend her life doing hard labor, deep underground.

She’d seen other villagers crossing the river that separates North Korea from China to find work and wanted to help support her family. So, one day, without telling her mother, she and a friend left home with the help of a broker – people who plan and facilitate the journey out of North Korea for a fee. She remembers it was early evening in autumn; the