WATCH | ‘Have More Babies, Be Better Comrades’: Kim Jong Un’s Tearful Plea to North Korean Women

A video shared by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Television showed North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un wiping away tears as he acknowledged the struggling nation’s falling birth rates for the first time at the National Conference of Mothers, held in capital Pyongyang, the first of its kind in 11 years.

“When all mothers clearly understand that it is patriotism to give birth to many children and do so positively, our cause of building a powerful socialist country can be hastened faster,” the 39-year-old dictator, Kim Jong Un, father to three children, said, thanking mothers for being on the frontline of rooting out anti-socialist behaviour and helping North Korea prosper, a report by the Wall Street Journal said.

Kim Jong Un urged North Korean women to be “meticulous mothers, grateful wives and kindhearted daughter-in-laws”. “Unless a mother becomes a communist, it is impossible for her to bring up her sons and daughters as communists and transform the members of her family into revolutionaries,” Kim Jong Un said.

In the video shared by the state-controlled media, many women attending the conference were also seen shedding tears.

Kim on Tuesday said that households producing “many children” will be given higher priority for housing, food and medical services. He also spoke of unspecified subsidies and preferential treatment for mothers who have more children and are better comrades.

North Korea’s birth rate is unusually low for an impoverished country, standing at 1.6, according to South Korean estimates. The report by the Wall Street Journal said that North Korea’s birth rate is half the rate of African countries with a similar economic profile. Citing demographic experts, the report said nations need fertility rates of around 2.1 to maintain the population.

North Korea’s fertility rate has steadily fallen from about 2.8 in 1979, according to United Nations data.

North Korea faces strong challenges when it comes to boosting its birth rates. The North Korean economy has suffered under sanctions and isolation during the pandemic. Much of its 26 million population suffers from food shortages and rampant human-rights abuses which disproportionately affects women. The Human Rights Watch says cases of domestic violence and sexual harassment against North Korean women go virtually unreported due to deeply patriarchal society.

Lee Woo-young, a professor of North Korean society and culture at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, pointing to women often serving as a household’s breadwinners due to government’s economic and military policy, told the newspaper that women began “prioritising making a living over having children”.