North Korean defector and human rights activist Yeonmi Park has spoken to the media about the atrocities facing her homeland.

The 23-year-old escaped from North Korea 10 years ago by travelling through China and Mongolia before settling in South Korea in 2009.

"The people in North Korea have been forgotten for 70 years," she said. "I am not even asking you to do something, just feed them. Why there is so hard, we have technology to go to the moon, we have technology to anything now. But why not North Korea?"

The human rights activist urged the media to focus more on the stories of North Koreans themselves, rather than the missile and nuclear tests.