Have many children for your country, Kim Jong-un tells North Korean women

The North Korean leader acknowledges the birthrate slump and ‘alien practices’ at mothers’ conference.

Emotions ran high as Kim Jong-un gave the opening and closing speeches at the two-day conference. Picture: Reuters

Kim Jong-un has urged North Korea’s mothers to have “many children” to overcome the declining birthrate.

The supreme leader told a mothers’ conference in Pyongyang that women should foster patriotism by fighting “alien” styles of speech and dress among the young. He urged parents to “flog” their children and make them join the army or work on building sites.

“With their inborn true feelings of flogging their kids with tears in their eyes to bring them up as honest persons, mothers should have no hesitation in making their beloved children work in the difficult and labour-consuming posts and workplaces,” Kim said on Monday at the two-day Fifth National Congress of Mothers.

“It will be mothers’ greatest pleasure to see their children growing up as pillars of the country while realising in the struggle and life how precious our party and social system are.”

Images on state media showed thousands of brightly dressed women, most of them elderly, gathered for the conference. At one point Kim appeared to shed tears as he was overcome by the joy of the occasion.

The Communist Mother’s Honour Award is handed out at the conference in Pyongyang. Picture: AFP

He opened his speech with elaborate praise for the mothers who endured “for scores of years the harshest trials that women of other countries could hardly stand even for a few days”.

His speech also acknowledged serious social problems that are rarely aired publicly in North Korea.

“Stopping the decline in birthrates and providing good childcare and education are [matters] that we should solve together with our mothers,” Kim said in his opening speech on Sunday.

He closed the event the following day by saying that “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 United Nations reports that the average fertility rate for North Korean women is 1.8 children in a lifetime, below the replacement rate. The Hyundai Research Institute in South Korea estimates that its neighbour’s population of 25.7 million will start to shrink in 2034 and fall to 23.7 million by 2070.

Kim said mothers should encourage their children to work as labourers. Picture: STR/KCNA/KNS/AFP/Getty Images

This is higher than South Korea, whose birthrate of 0.8 is the lowest in the world. It still has grim long-term implications for the workforce in an economy that struggles with inefficiency and sanctions.

Kim also raised what has become a recurring theme in the past two years – the incursion into North Korean culture of “alien” elements, code for South Korean habits transmitted through illegally smuggled digital recordings of television, film and pop music.

“Some mothers pay attention to their children’s studies while neglecting their education in courtesy and morality, including the polite way of speaking, and their use of words and deeds different from our own style,” Kim told the assembled mothers.

“Some other mothers think that they perform their responsibility … when they bring their children up in a special way, providing special clothing for them. The struggle against alien practices now intensifies in society.

“Only when mothers actively join in the struggle can all such practices be eliminated.”

The Times