Street vendors sell roast chestnuts and sweet potatoes from stalls in downtown Pyongyang. /Yonhap
Posted on 11/11/2007 7:03:56 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Threatened N.Korea Cracks Down Female Merchants
North Korea has banned young women from working in street markets across the country to prevent the rapid spread of street markets, it was known on Thursday. According to a North Korea expert, authorities on Oct. 1 banned women in their 40s or younger from participating in street food market businesses in Pyongyang, and expanded the measure nationwide this month.
According to Good Friends, a Seoul-based civic relief organization for North Korea, the measure will be applied to all women under 45 beginning Dec. 1. Authorities are also confiscating all wire telephones that have been installed at private houses for business purposes, except those for official use. The organization said that arguments and scuffles have broken out between women and police in major North Korean cities. The cities look as if martial law has been declared, with policemen frequently seen arresting women for resisting their authority, Good Friends said.
Street vendors sell roast chestnuts and sweet potatoes from stalls in downtown Pyongyang. /Yonhap
A North Korean government official said in China recently, "Authorities have judged that female merchants have reached a point that threatens the country's government." According to him, women are often absent from official programs, including village indoctrination sessions or "voluntary" public works, using various excuses. Many young North Korean women are looking to get married at an early age so they can sell goods, bypassing the regulation that they must work at offices or factories before marriage. North Korea still bans North Korean men from engaging in trade.
The North Korean official continued, "The men are tied to their workplaces but they don't receive proper rations. This has shifted the men's burden of supporting their families onto the women. With trade directly linked to the people's survival, the crackdown isn't going well."
According to recent North Korean refugees, the number of female merchants is increasing rapidly not only in Pyongyang, but in other major cities such as Hamheung in South Hamgyong Province, Cheongjin in North Hamgyong Province and Pyongsong in South Pyongan Province. Some people compare North Korean marketplaces to Namdaemun Market in Seoul. A joke spreading in North Korea says that one can find anything and everything in the nations' markets, "except cat horns." And the expanding markets are dominated by women, said a North Korean refugee who recently arrived in Seoul via China.
With their growing power in the markets, North Korean women are increasingly controlling their families' economic decisions and enhancing their status in society. As a result, traditional ideas of the predominance of men over women are losing ground in North Korea. When policemen arrive, North Korean women frequently confront them, saying, "Don't you have a mother or a sister?" Many times the policemen can do little in such situations.
"Market expansion will actually help prolong the regime's life, but the problem is the North Korean authorities don't think that way," said Suh Jae-jin, a senior research scholar at the Korea Institute of National Unification. "They have repeatedly cracked down on markets out of fear of that they will expand. But the crackdowns and controls on the markets haven't been properly enforced due to corruption. If the authorities try to control their residents before resolving their livelihood problems, it will incur further discontent from the North Korean people and will only end up shortening the lifespan of the Kim Jong-il regime."
They think it is unenlightened to have such a view. This is the fastest way to join the league of overeducated imbeciles.
Ping!
With trade directly linked to the people’s survival, the crackdown isn’t going well.”
Socialists never learn.
I think this is proof that the natural state of humanity is an inherently free, capitalistic society. You can only keep people under your heel for so long.
The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers.
Sounds alarmingly like a modern American university.
“The cities look as if martial law has been declared,” and have looked that way, pretty much, since the last days of World War II, when the Soviets invaded, occupied, and installed Jong-il’s papa, Kim Il-sung, as their puppet.
Yes , and I would bet a few of them sell much more than chestnuts.
How sad I wonder if these poor women are single mothers
“I think this is proof that the natural state of humanity is an inherently free, capitalistic society. You can only keep people under your heel for so long.
The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers.”
Almost as if “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were “inalienable rights”. ;)
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