Wearing tight black trousers and a sequined red jersey, Song Hee looks the part of a typical teenager. Her dreams are of freedom but her story is one of desperation.

She fled less than a month ago. With a classmate, the 16-year-old girl trudged for three hours to a desolate forest region and slid over the frozen Yalu River into China. She did not tell her parents. “They would have tried to stop me.”

Back home, her mother sold socks at a market until it was closed — part of a clampdown on free enterprise. Her family was already under surveillance after her brother — who trafficked people out of the country — fled to South Korea a year ago.

By North Korea’s lowly standards they were relatively well-off. Since her brother left, however, she has lived in fear that the whole family would be taken to a labour camp. She dropped out of school and three weeks ago the pressure became too great.

After years of indoctrination against the West she is stunned when she sees our Caucasian faces. She gasps: “Evil Americans! It’s the enemy.” Gradually she calms down.

Haltingly, she describes her former life. She would watch television — if there was power.

Titanic is said to be the bootleg DVD of the moment but Song Hee watched pornographic films — apparently the only ones available in her area. “There’s no ideology or politics and no pictures of other societies so they allow this,” she says. It seems an odd gesture by a dictatorial and puritanical state.

She doesn’t smoke, although she has tried “Future” brand cigarettes “designed to meet the tastes of women”. On the other hand, she has taken drugs. What kind she isn’t sure. “A friend of my father said it could be good for a cold. It was white. I sniffed it and it kept me awake for a long time.” Song Hee is coy about how she spends her days.

“Other girls have boyfriends and I hear some get pregnant and have abortions.” As for what her friends think? “With very close friends we talk about our opinions, but it’s dangerous.

“The situation just gets worse and worse and I have no hope.”

Three weeks after reaching China, Song Hee heard her brother had been found in South Korea. She hopes he will help her travel there, but she’s not sure. She knows only that she can’t go back.