A/HRC/25/CRP.1
According to the nongovernmental organization Citizens Alliance on North Korean Human
Rights:
“[t]he Women’s Act was merely a façade created during North Korea’s
[United Nations] human rights review when it faced international pressure…
the North Korean state has recently been trying to reinforce through
ideological education the traditional role women in a patriarchal society.”365
314. In the political sphere, women remain discriminated against despite the early
reforms. Women make up just 5 per cent of the Worker’s Party of Korea Central
Committee Members and Candidate Members,366 and 10 per cent of central government
employees.367
315. In the home, while women remain subservient to men, women’s economic progress
is having an impact. Men, who have also become creative at making money through nonstate sanctioned enterprise, are reticent to work in the market as they are not permitted to by
the state (having to remain officially in the employ of a state position) and because the
market is considered ‘a women’s area’.368
• A former trader told the Commission that some men sold bicycles in the market but
for the most part “women were more numerous because men had their careers”.369
• One witness whose wife traded in the market, explained that he did not engage in
the market because it was “embarrassing”. He told the Commission that he also
heard “rumours that men who engaged in the black market get punished. From
2002-03, more men have worked in the markets, but there is still a stigma attached
to it. Men are expected to work in the official jobs.”370
316. As a consequence of the disproportionate representation of women in the markets,
most household income is generated by women, which has led to a perceived
disempowerment of men. Some women are allegedly calling their husbands “puppies”
because they have to be fed, yet they do not contribute to the economy of the household.
The additional financial burden women are bearing is coupled with additional burdens at
home due to the lack of electricity and/ or running water in some homes caused by
breakdown of state services.371 The extra burdens women carry has begun to have social
consequences. Younger women are hoping to delay marriage to avoid taking on a husband,
and domestic violence is increasing as many men are unable to cope with the changing
gender roles.372
317. Witness testimony revels that domestic violence is rife within DPRK society, and
victims are not afforded protection from the state, support services or recourse to justice.373
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, “Status of Women’s Rights in the Context of
Socio-Economic Changes in the DPRK”, p. 16.
KINU, “Study on the Power Elite of the Kim Jong Un Regime”, (2013), p. 24..
Won-woong Lee, “An Observer Report on the UN Human Rights Committee’s Review Session on
North Korea’s Second Periodic Report on Human Rights” as cited in KINU, White Paper on Human
Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 381.
TAP007, TBG030 and TSH052.
TBG030.
TSH052.
Lim Soon-hee, “The Food Crisis and the Changing Roles and Attitudes of North Korean Women”,
KINU, 2005, p. 14.
Louisa Lim, “Out Of Desperation, North Korean Women Become Breadwinners”, National Public
Radio, 28 December 2012.
TAP007, TSH020, TSH055, TLC042, TBG028.
89