![\"Sungju](\"http:\/\/cusjc.ca\/gridlock\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Lee-2-1.jpg\")
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He pickpocketed in a North Korean market by day; he loitered in a train station by night.<\/p>\n
Today, he\u2019s an intern for Conservative MP Barry Devolin in Canada.<\/p>\n
Sungju Lee, 27, is a North Korean defector. He escaped from North Korea in 2002 when he was only a teenager.<\/p>\n
Canada is his latest stop on a journey that began in Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to mountains almost everyday. My father collected firewood, sometimes he caught rabbits, sometimes squirrels, sometimes snakes,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t always like this for Lee and his family. This lifestyle of scavenging began for Lee in 1997.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s father once worked closely to then-leader Kim Il-sung in his personal military until he made what Lee calls a \u201cpolitical mistake.\u201d His family was then kicked out of the wealthy capital city and fled to the northeastern outskirts of North Korea where poverty and famine were rife.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were in Pyongyang, we had a house, nice food, and nice clothes. But after we got kicked out of Pyongyang\u2026 we lost everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 1998, his father left to look for food in China. He never returned.<\/p>\n
Three months later, Lee\u2019s mother disappeared, too.<\/p>\n
Lee, being an only child, was left to survive on his own. That\u2019s when he met six other boys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe became a gang,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Together they made money from stealing, begging and fighting; they slept at the local train station at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt became our job,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He lived on the streets for four years.
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