North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter [Paperback]

Sakie Yokota (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 2009

On November 15, 1977, 13 year-old Megumi Yokota disappeared without a trace while on her way home from school. Twenty years later a newspaper revealed she was abducted by North Korean operatives and was still in North Korea. Megumi and at least 13 others were taken from coastal cities in Japan during the 1970s and 80s, shoved into holding cells on spy vessels, and shipped off to North Korea to train agents in Japanese culture and customs. The perpetrators of the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987 posed as Japanese nationals thanks to such training.

North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is Sakie Yokota’s memoir of the last 30 years without her daughter. Her resounding faith is inspirational as is her unfaltering determination to repatriate Megumi. Mrs. Yokota vividly recounts the horrifying panic when Megumi went missing and the entire ordeal of her daughter’s absence.

In 2002, North Korea released five of the victims, claiming the other eight were dead; however, it refused to provide legitimate evidence to support these claims. After four years of deliberations in Japan, Sakie Yokota attended the first U.S. Congressional hearing on the abductions and asked America for help.

If alive, Megumi is now 44 years old. Her mother and father have aged, her twin brothers have families of their own, and while they know where Megumi was taken to, she still has not been returned. Mrs. Yokota is strongly opposed to any “de-listing” of North Korea barring the return of the remaining abductees.

Editorial Reviews

Review

 “The Yokotas' story has everything: intrigue, suspense, international scandal, betrayal, hope, despair, faith, endurance, redemption.  Most of all, it has the stirring example of a mother's love that unexpectedly brought her to faith and a role on the world stage.” —Philip Yancey


"...a family journal; a journey of continuing hope and faith.  the reading of this modest book is a moving, albeit painful privilege pitting simple folk against impenetrable governments on an international stage where personal loss ultimately reveals an enormous cost to our humanity.  shigeru's photos and sakie yokota's tender unfolding of the events surrounding the kidnapping of their daughter megumi are a testimony to the strength and tenacity of the caring heart."  - Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary

"The abduction issue may be Japanese-centric but it must be understood in the broader context of an assault on the dignity of the family, everyone's family." —James A. Leach, Former House of Representative Member and chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

"North Korea Kidnapped my Daughter" by Mrs. Sakie Yokota is a deeply moving personal account that reminds us all of the very real human costs of the unresolved historical legacies in East Asia." —L. Gordon Flake, The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation
“This profoundly touching testimony of a mother’s love for her daughter, and her unwillingness to give up the search to find her, should be read by anyone wanting to learn the depths of horror and depravity to which the government of North Korea will sink in its quest to perpetuate its horrific dictatorship. The case of Megumi Yokota cries out for attention.” —Thor Halvorssen, President, Human Rights Foundation

“Mrs. Sakie Yokota’s book of her daughter and their family’s struggle provides intimate descriptions in this extraordinary nightmare of parenthood: an agonizing state of knowing that their child had greatly suffered, while unsure and searching for information of their daughter’s whereabouts and condition. Mrs. Yokota’s strength of character is incredible throughout the book; in her, determination and faith are more powerful than anger.” —Robin H. Sakoda, Armitage International, L.C.

“A heart-rending story of a mother’s love and devotion in confrontation with one of the world’s last totalitarian regime." —Rev. Robert A. Sirico, President, Acton Institute

“This is a heartbreaking story of the ‘loss’ of a Japanese child abducted by North Korea as told through the voice of her mother.  In painstaking detail the mother mines the tiniest memory of her child, her dress, her laugh, her off-hand comments, and of course events of the last time she saw her. It is then the story of the mother’s evolution from a grieving housewife to a pioneer in pulling together Japanese families with similar stories and gradually, within the context of cultural limitations, beginning to exhort the Japanese government to face the North Koreans and bring their daughter and the others home." –Jane Cicala, Former Boeing Executive, Organizer of Diplomatic Circle in Washington D.C.

“North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter by Sakie Yokota is an important contribution. Her search drives home the importance of the universal bonds of a relationship of family, that special relationship between a mother and daughter, and how a country such as North Korea must correct its past mistakes if it plans to move forward and normalize relations with other countries throughout the world.” —Dr. Gerard Janco, President, Eurasia Center/Eurasian Business Coalition

“I welcome this book. I hope it will lead Americans to understand the abductees’ issue and get together to move forward to return all of the victims.” –Jung min Noh, Radio Free Asia

“My meeting with Sakie Yokota remains one of the most moving experiences of my Presidency.”—George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States

About the Author

Sakie Yokota was a simple housewife, happily married with a 13-year-old daughter and twin 7-year old sons, when her daughter Megumi mysteriously disappeared in November 1977. Through tireless efforts and relentless faith, she fought to find answers to her daughter's fate, eventually coming up against an international espionage conspiracy involving North Korea
under the leadership of Kim Jongil.

In 1997, her husband Shigeru was designated chairman of the newly founded Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea. The Association supports the victims of North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In August 2006, Sakie met with President Bush to further talks about demanding sanctions on North
Korea.

Today, Sakie still does not know whether Megumi is alive or not.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Vertical (January 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193428744X
• ISBN-13: 978-1934287446
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it, February 2, 2009

By 

reachdc "reachdc" (rockville, md United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter (Paperback)

Until you read it, you cannot understand that abduction is harder than death for a family.
Until you read it, you don't know what's really going on in East Asia.
By reading this book, you will find the world through the eyes of a mother.
Then you will find, the mother, a very ordinary mother changed a country, because of her love for her daughter.
For more info, check[...]

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shocking!, July 19, 2009

By 

Yaz (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter (Paperback)

Child abduction is one of the most traumatic experiences for a family. In 1977, middle school student Megumi Yokota disappeared on her way home from school in the coastal city of Niigata, Japan. Despite massive efforts on the part of the community and the local police, Megumi's disappearance was never solved. It was years later that Megumi's parents finally received information leading them to believe that she, like several other Japanese citizens known of at the time, had been abducted by North Korean agents. It was not until 2002 that North Korea officially admitted to the abductions, but question remains over whether or not Megumi is still alive, leaving her family without closure.

Written by Megumi's mother, Sakie Yokota, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is by no means a highly polished work of nonfiction. As a writer, Yokota tends to dwell too much on details while letting some of the larger questions out of her grasp, and the last few chapters start to feel repetitive as she reaches for an ending that does not exist. What this book definitely is, however, is a stunningly moving story of loss and a life lived in perpetual uncertainty.

Yokota's memories of her daughter contain the kind of intense detail that can only exist when something has been thought through and examined thousands of times over, and it is easy to imagine her determination to hang on to each tiny bit of memory, knowing that there may be no more. Yokota's carefully kind tone toward anyone who has ever been involved in Megumi's case is both moving and somehow painful, as is her painstaking effort to thank every person who has ever helped her or sent her hopeful wishes for Megumi's return. Her campaign to retrieve her daughter, unwavering even in the face of government resistance, is truly inspirational. Still, what inspires the deepest heartache and outrage in the reader is the loss of Yokota's own life to a potentially hopeless search. That neither the Japanese government nor anyone else has been able to bring about the return of Megumi or at least determine some clear resolution regarding her fate is maddening, as is Yokota's powerlessness in the situation.

Regardless of its few shortcomings , North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is an extremely moving and heartbreaking story. A good read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening Book About a Merciless Regime's Crime Against a Child, May 15, 2009

By 

Londonderry (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter (Paperback)

This book is the well-written true account by Sakie Yokota, whose 13-year-old beautiful, vivacious daughter Megumi was kidnapped in 1977. Sakie Yokota and her husband did not know what had happened to their child for twenty endless years, only to find out in 1997 that their child had been taken off the streets of the seaside town of Niigata, Japan by North Korean agents and spirited away to North Korea - locked in the holds of a boat, yet! Furthermore, the Yokotas have still not been able to get their daughter back, but they're the kind of decent parents who never stop trying to gain her release.

This story is an outrage unlike any other I've ever encountered. This is one of the sickest crimes I've ever heard of and there is absolutely no justification for it. No country has the right to kidnap citizens of other countries to begin with, especially for "political" reasons, but for them to have stolen the Yokota's child on her way home from school is reprehensible.

Sakie Yokota deserves a medal for writing this book and for exposing the bizarre North Korean practice of kidnapping foreign nationals. Megumi was not the only person kidnapped. She's one of several. It's so outrageous, and such a cowardly act on behalf of the North Korean government, that for once in my life I'm at a loss for words. Suffice it to say the book is worth reading and is an education in itself about a regime whose practices need to be stopped and stopped at once.

I want to add here that it is my hope, and also my prayer, that Megumi Yokota is allowed to return home soon to the parents who still haven't given up on seeing her again.