Escape from Camp 14 #2

Rule #8: "Should sexual physical contact occur without prior approval, the perpetrators will be shot immediately."

Shin Dong-hyuk was not conceived in a conventional way. His parents were given a "reward marriage." For their good behavior, they were allowed to become husband and wife. This gave incentive for other prisoners to snitch on one another. If a woman were to become pregnant, she and her baby would be killed. Anyway, as a child, Shin never had any sense of a family. His mother and father did not necessarily like each other and his older brother would constantly pick on him. His father and mother lived separately and saw each other few times a year. Shin lived with his mother and viewed her as competition for food. When Shin's mother worked he would often eat her food before she got home. Upon her arrival and discovery that he ate her food, she would beat him. The happiest days of Shin's childhood were in the summer, when he was sent into the fields to weed. He was able to steal some food and quiet the hunger that ravaged his body.

Rule #1, subsection 2: "Any witness to an attempted escape who fails to report it will be shot immediately."

The guards of Camp 14 effectively brainwash all of the prisoners. Shin's mother and brother had discussed an escape. Shin feared his mother and brother getting caught. He took what he viewed to be the best action and reported them. The next day, Shin was taken from school and driven to an underground prison where he was kept for 8 months. The guards in the prison tortured him by hanging him over a fire by a hook in his stomach. Shin did not want to escape but he was tortured. He was nursed to health by another prisoner.