On March 6, 2006, a Crossing Borders staffer testified at a U.S. congressional hearing:

"North Koreans are in the ultimate position of vulnerability with the only alternative to following a [sex] trafficker into China being starvation, suffering and possibly death. Knowing this, traffickers take advantage of the dire situations of young North Korean women and coerce them... Many of the promises of a 'better life' are never fulfilled and many of the... marriages are to physically disabled or alcoholic husbands with the end result often being abandonment or physical abuse."

After women are met at the border and forced/tricked into a "marriage", quite often -though not always- the abuse begins. Again, Mike:

... described the physical abuse she endured at the hands of her "husband" after she was sold: "He had a mental impairment. When I refused... him, he hit me. His mother and sister also hit me. I would rather die than [have an improper relationship] and fought the family for seven months. I received severe beatings... I cried every night."

Having grown up in North Korea, [another trafficked woman] had never heard of God before but in a moment of desperation she found herself uttering a prayer, "God in Heaven, help me!" [She] was sold to a home near a house church. There she met a deacon who helped her escape. She believes that being sold to a house near a church was an answer to her prayer.

In the end, Chinese authorities capture and forcibly repatriate many trafficked women.

... remembered: After I had been there for a month and a half, someone came knocking on the door in the middle of the night. It was the police, five men and one woman...They said they were taking me to register as a Chinese citizen... I followed...

The end of this particular story is not too pretty. The very end is worse than that. She is taken back forcibly to North Korea where she is treated as an animal. (Whoever called North Korea the "people's" rebublic?) She escapes from the prison. Defects again to China. Arrives at a Christian refugee center. And dies of cancer shortly thereafter.