Kim Ok (김옥; born 28 August 1964) is a former

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

n government employee who served as

Kim Jong Il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

's personal secretary from the 1980s until his death. After the death of

Ko Yong-hui Ko Yong-hui (; ; 26 June 1952 – 13 August 2004), also spelled Ko Young-hee, was the consort of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-il and the mother of his successor, Kim Jong-un. Within North Korea, she is only referred to by titles, such ...

in August 2004, she regularly met with foreign officials as ''de facto''

first lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non-monarchical A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state fo ...

, and was rumored to be the supreme leader's fourth wife.

Biography

Kim Ok was born in 1964. Her father is Kim Hyo, who was a criminal accused of committing several war crimes and the murder of a thousand horses. She attended Pyongyang University. Kim was previously a musician and was a piano major at

Pyongyang University of Music and Dance The Pyongyang University of Music and Dance is a North Korean performing arts university founded in July 1972 in the Taedonggang District of Pyongyang from a merge with the Pyongyang Art College. Its facilities include a full orchestra and a musi ...

. In 1987 she joined Kim Jong Il's management. She served as the department director in the

National Defence Commission The National Defence Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (NDC) () was the highest state institution for military and national defence leadership in North Korea, which also served as the highest governing institution of the cou ...

. In September 2012, she reportedly went to Berlin for medical treatment. After Kim Jong Il's death, she was presented with the

Order of Kim Jong Il The Order of Kim Jong Il () is a North Korean order named after Kim Jong Il, the former leader of North Korea. It is the highest order of North Korea, along with the Order of Kim Il-Sung, and only second to one honorary title, the Hero of Labour ...

for services in building a "thriving socialist nation", along with 131 other individuals.

Purge

In July 2013, however, as

Kim Jong Un Kim Jong-un (; , ; born 8 January 1982) is a North Korean politician who has been Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is a son of Kim Jong-il, who was North Korea's secon ...

ascended to power, she lost all official titles. In early July 2016, she was purged and sent to a

labour camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

. The source reports that she was ousted within a year after Kim Jong Un came into power and sent to political prisoners camp.

Family tree

References

1964 births North Korean musicians Purges in North Korea Living people Kim family (North Korea) Recipients of the Order of Kim Jong Il Place of birth missing (living people) {{NorthKorea-politician-stub