At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, probably the most important panel presented was about global financial inclusion.
Governments use fiat money to control, exploit, and sustain schemes where a few thrive in profits and a vast majority die starved; victims of forced labor, forgotten by the bigger headlines.
Nabourema, Elsalameen, and Park carry the open wounds of societies that have been broken apart, knelt down, under the power of money.
As Gladstein and Park explained, 70% of people who flee North Korea are women.
Many of these women are sent back to North Korea and kept in prison camps without any hopes of ever coming out.
“There are 300,000 North Korean women right now in China and the children are about over one million of them, we don’t know quite fully how many are there,” Park said.
For Farida Nabourema, on the other hand, her incredible fight traces back to generations of activists who have been imprisoned for opposing the corrupt and colonial money schemes that keep most Africans living in extreme poverty.
And for activists who otherwise would face prison, bitcoin has been the only tool to send money without putting their lives at risk.
The North Korean regime is a testament to how evil a government can be to individuals,” Park said.