Posted on 12/08/2009 5:00:35 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
'Women Power' Gathers Against N.Korean Currency Shock
North Korea's women are emerging as a formidable force in the face of controversial currency reforms, sources said Monday.
Most of the market traders in the North are women in their 40s and 50s trying to earn enough to feed their children. And now they are openly expressing their anger as the draconian reforms, which replace the currency at a rate of 100:1 and effectively confiscate any savings, make their lives even more difficult.
"The women are tough and defiant," a source said, "and now they are angry. Markets are turning into places of protest against North Korean leader Kim Jong-il." The women gather to accuse the authorities, defying threats of arrest.
Organizations reporting on life in North Korea say prices denominated in new won are already soaring. Activist organization Good Friends said rice sold for 16-17 new won per kg in the Pyongyang market until Dec. 2 jumped to 50 won on Dec. 3. Another sources said there are rumors of cutthroat inflation because market traders are hoarding food. Rumors have it that the price of an egg has risen from 300 old won to 7,000.
But the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group of defectors, said food rations are being distributed at state offices and the initial chaos is dying down in North Hamgyong Province, including Onsong, Hoeryong and Musan. The regime claims food rations will soon resume across the board, so there will be no need of money. But many North Koreans remember the millions who starved to death in the mid- and late 1990s and are unlikely to be fooled by such promises.
Meanwhile, a seminar hosted by the Korea Peace Institute heard that the nascent middle class and the rich will not be too badly affected because they appear to have hard currency stashed away, according to Dong Yong-seung, a senior fellow at the Samsung Economic Research Institute. But he added the living conditions of ordinary people will deteriorate rapidly.
KPI director Yoon Young-kwan, a professor at Seoul National University, said, "The currency reform is the first round in a standoff between the North Korean government and market forces. There will be many more."
Dr. Kim Young-yoon of the Korea Institute for National Unification stressed the need to "pay attention to the North Korean residents who might be bearing a greater grudge and becoming more defiant."
The reforms could also affect the joint-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex. Dr. Cho Bong-Hyun, a North Korea analyst with the Industrial Bank of Korea, said there is a good chance that the North will ask for a wage rise for workers there next year.
It has been tidied up a bit. In the original article, there is a passage saying that, these middle-aged women keep on savaging Kim Jong-il even in the presence of policemen, who are usually younger. They tried to intercede and try to stop women. But women shot back, "Get lost, you SOB!"
Ping!
Wow. Can this be true? Open defiance?
Ironic. Japanese women more or less revived Japan during the dark, hopeless, vanquised days right after World War II and surrender; their men were sapped and totally lost face and came back embarrassed and downtrodden from the battlefield, their Japanese samurai machismo completely stamped out. Japanese women stepped up to the plate though by the milllions, really ran the families and pressed ahead and got the country back on its feat.
Wouldnt that be something if the in the case of North Korea, the WOMEN were responsible for dismantling evil, and then rebuilding the place? I think they have it within them.
Three cheers for the valiant, average women of all ages of prison-like North Korea. May they, and all, be liberated soon and realize their full potential as beautiful human beings. God Bless those ajuma's up there.
They need to kill their misleaders. Kim needs to be Ceacescued. That might give the Chinese ideas.
Yeah AIT that so true
I like see North Koreans women stand up against regime where is NAG Gang in all this HELLO
That tell me alot about NAG Gang they don’t care about third world country women
They didn’t say jack about Tailban only Hollywood celebrity wife who said jack about Tailban and treatment of Agharn women before 911 was Mrs Jay Leno his wife
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