Woman who escaped North Korea reveals truth behind ‘world’s most dangerous 13-year-old’
When false rumours that Kim Jong Un had died recently, much was made about who would succeed the Supreme Leader in North Korea.
The answer, it seems, is his daughter Kim Jau Ae, who has been dubbed as the 'world's most dangerous 13-year-old', due to the power that would be at her disposal should she take over from her father.
While the western world have learned a little more about the mysterious teenager in recent months, many of those within the country itself have little knowledge about the Kim family.
Questioning their position or even researching them in any way could 'put them in danger', according to a woman who defected from North Korea to South Korea after 'draconian' rules during the pandemic cost her family their fishing business.
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She told Associated Press: “My husband and I didn’t want our children to live under a fourth-generation dictatorship. As parents, we thought the best thing we could do for our children was to give them freedom.”
Whenever state TV would show the youngster alongside her father, Kim Yumi explains that it felt like a clear message was being sent, that she would take over his position.
Kim Jong Un rose to power in the same way after his father Kim Jong Il passed away in 2011, becoming the third ruler from the Kim family to rule, since his grandfather also held the same position.
However, Kim Jau Ae is only one of three children that Kim Jong Un shares with his wife Ri Sol-ju according to the BBC, but none of the others have ever been seen in public and we don't know their names or ages.
Bizarrely, we may only know about Kim Jau Ae because of the ever-eclectic Dennis Rodman, as the basketball legend held her as a baby during a visit to Pyongyang in 2013.
But while the Chicago Bulls star was able to get close to the Kim family, Kim Yumi suggested to AP that she had never even heard of the girl until she was publicly introduced at a long-range missile launch site back in November 2022.
She added: “Ordinary people know absolutely nothing about private lives of the Kim family. They don’t really try to know about it and don’t pay attention to it because doing so could put them in danger.”
Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, told Reuters in 2025: "For all we know, this is just him doting on a favourite child, but the more that she shows up, the more it seems that she’s either being fully groomed for leadership or at least floated as a possibility."
If it is just him making it clear who his favourite daughter is then he's going to great lengths, as the country has even started started producing postage stamps featuring both of them together.
Although the current supreme leader is just 42, the viral death rumours do expose just how concerning it might be for the rest of the world if he were to die and leave a 13-year-old in charge, especially considering the current heightened tensions with the South, as well as the concerning access to nuclear weapons.
Topics: Kim Jong-un, World News, Politics
James Moorhouse
