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Euna Lee and Laura Ling receive Women of the Year awards after their North Korean ordeal
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Laura Ling, right, and Euna Lee, left with Hana Saldate, center, (Lee's daughter) at the awards.
Glamour Magazine held the 2009 Women of the Year awards at Carnegie Hall in New York last night, Monday November 10th 2009. Michelle Obama received a Special Recognition award for “commitment to mentoring young women” and singer Rihanna also received a Woman of the Year award, but perhaps the most poignant awards went to Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the U.S. Journalists who were detained in a North Korea jail for 140 days earlier this year.
Euna Lee and Laura Ling's North Korean story
Laura Ling and Euna Lee work for Current TV in the U.S. Both journalists traveled to Asia earlier this year to investigate a story about women who crossed the North Korean border into China to escape starvation. Many times the escaped North Korean women become captured by sex trade traffickers. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korean soldiers and thrown into a North Korean jail whilst on the Chinese/North Korean border. The release of the two journalists came in August with the intervention of former president Bill Clinton.
Physiological and Physical Health Effects of the Journalist's Imprisonment
It has taken time for both Laura Ling and Euna Lee to recover from their North Korean ordeal since their return to the U.S. Euna Lee has a five year old daughter and she has stated that she “felt my heart might explode” during her time in a harsh North Korean prison, away from her daughter.
Although Laura Ling and Euna Lee have played down the effects of their time in North Korea captivity, stating that their story shouldn't overshadow the original story they were investigating, both journalists stated in a report in the Los Angeles Times on September 1st 2009 that:
...”the physiological wounds of imprisonment are slow to heal.”
It was not the first time that Laura Ling and Euna Lee covered a story on the controversies of the world; both journalists have spent a number of years covering worldwide crises. The strength of the two women is an example of the physical and mental health the human body endures and is capable of recovering from with determination and will power.
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