Megumi Yokota

Megumi Yokota (横田 めぐみ, Yokota Megumi^?) (born 5 October 1964) is a Japanese woman who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977, when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least 17 Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that Yokota is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan.

Yokota was abducted on November 15, 1977 at the age of thirteen while walking home from school in her seaside village in Niigata Prefecture. North Korean agents reportedly dragged her into a boat and took her straight to North Korea to a facility in which North Korean spies were taught about South Korean customs and practices. There she was taught the Korean language. Also at the facility were two South Korean high school students, aged 18 and 16, who had been abducted from South Korea in August 1977. In August 1978, three more 16-year-old South Korean students were abducted from South Korea and taken to the facility. The three included Kim Youngnam, who would reportedly later marry Yokota.

After learning Korean, Yokota was apparently forced to help train North Korean spies to pass as Japanese citizens. In January 1997, information about Megumi's abduction was disclosed to Yokota's parents by Tatsukichi Hyomoto, a secretary to a Diet member Atsushi Hashimoto, by a phone call. In 2002, North Korea admitted that she and others had been abducted, but claimed that she had committed suicide on March 13, 1994 (originally announced as 1993 and later corrected to 1994) and returned what it said were her cremated remains. Japan stated that a DNA test proved they could not have been her remains, and her family does not believe that she would have committed suicide. She is believed to have been abducted by Sin Gwang-su.

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