Young woman gives heart-breaking account of what living in North Korea is really like

A speech North Korean activist Park Yeonmi gave two years ago at the One Young World Summit has gone viral only now.

Her heart wrenching and personal story of how she escaped North Korea was recently shared on Facebook and in less than a week, it has been watched over 65 million times.

The 23-year-old shared the hardships and struggles she went through while living under the rule of the Kim dictatorship.

She spoke about how she watched her friend's mother get publicly executed.

"Her crime -- watching a Hollywood movie," she said, struggling to hold back her tears.

“North Korea is the only country in the world that executed people for making unauthorised international phone calls” she said.

However, her nightmare did not end there.

Escape from North Korea was not easy.

Her father died in China shortly after their escape.

“I had to bury him, at 3am in secret. I was 14 years old, I couldn’t even cry, I was afraid to be sent back to North Korea” she shared in between sobs.

“The day I escaped North Korea, I saw my mother raped. The rapist was a Chinese broker. He targeted me, I was 13 years old. There is a saying in North Korea: ‘Women are weak, but mothers are strong’. My mother allowed herself to be raped in order to protect me.”

Determined to "live as humans", Yeonmi and her mother pushed themselves to cross Mongolia.

“Mongolia was our freedom moment. Death or dignity. Armed with knives, we were prepared to kill ourselves if we were going to be sent back to North Korea. We wanted to live as humans.

“No humans deserve to be oppressed just because of their birthplace.”

Her speech touched everyone at the conference and it was hard to find a dry eye in the house.

She urged everyone to do their part to help those who are still oppressed and trapped in North Korea under Kim Jong-un's regime.

Watch her speech below.