North Korea is trying to prevent couples from divorcing by launching an educational campaign targeting married women, but residents say the initiative unfairly blames women, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia.
The campaign also punishes the parents of divorcing couples by publicly shaming them and holds companies accountable if their workforce has high divorce rates.
North Korea’s divorce rates are not publicly available, but at least one source suggested that they were rising, and that a key reason for this was the enormous stress that economic difficulties have placed on families, and women in particular. due to COVID-19. 19 pandemic.
“The directive… emphasized that divorce should be prevented by strengthening ideological education for those proposing divorce,” said a woman in North Hamgyong province who asked not to be named to protect her safety.
“This phenomenon is directly related to the problem of people’s livelihood, which has become more difficult every day since the coronavirus crisis began,” he said, referring to the increase in the divorce rate.
Women are the breadwinners in most North Korean families. Men spend their days working government-assigned jobs that pay meager wages that are not enough to live on.
Therefore, it usually falls to women to run a side business, such as selling food or handicrafts at a market stall, to support the household.
‘Give up families’
On orders from the Central Committee, the Korean Socialist Women’s Union held conferences for housewives to discourage divorce, a source in the northern province of Ryanggang told the FRG Korean Service.
“The conferences claimed that the divorce goes against the party line and policy, which says it should be eliminated somehow,” the source said.
But residents who attended the conference said it was irresponsible of the authorities to say that it is the women’s fault that families collapse without acknowledging the state’s responsibility to improve living conditions, she said.
“They ask things like, “Do you think women would willingly break up their families if it were easier to live?‘”
TO A 2016 article published in the academic journal Asian Population Studies said that 96% of North Korean adults over the age of 30 were married and less than 1% of the country’s population was classified as separated or divorced according to official data.
“The housewives hoped that they would be able to escape from the hardships of life when the coronavirus crisis subsided,” the North Hamgyong source said. “But now they are increasingly giving up on their families, as the hardships are getting severe enough to be compared to the Hard March.”
The Arduous March refers to the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed hundreds of thousands and possibly more than 2 million people by some estimates. To suggest that the current situation is close to the Hard March is an indication that the future could be bleak for many families.
responsible parents
The North Hamgyong source said that in addition to lectures, the government even threatens to punish the parents of people who get divorced.
“The Central Committee ordered that not only divorce applicants be held accountable in collective assemblies, but also their parents, for the wrong upbringing of their children,” he said.
This is not the first time the government has tried to tackle the issue of divorce, he said.
“In September last year, the Korean Socialist Women’s Union issued an order to strengthen the ideological education of women, in order to prevent divorce,” the source said. “However, as the number of divorce cases has not decreased, the Central Committee has once again ordered measures to prevent divorce.
Convincing disgruntled housewives to stay with their families appears to be the main goal of the campaign, the sources said.
Therefore, each regional party office will carry out an ideological education project for members of the Union of Socialist Women under the slogan “Let us completely eliminate the phenomenon of divorce and build a harmonious family, the cell of society,” he said. the source of North Hamgyong.
“Party and worker organizations were ordered to strengthen individual collective education so that each woman fulfills her duty as a mother, housewife, and wife,” she said.
In Ryanggang, preparations are being made to investigate every government institution, factory and company to assess the number of households getting divorced, the source there said.
“Company officials are nervous that the Central Committee has a policy to hold them accountable for family mismanagement in the organization if divorce and family discord occur frequently among the families of employees,” he said.
Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
