Institute for Far Eastern Studies
NK Brief No. 07-11-15-1
11/15/2007
Recently, North Korean authorities have adopted a measure prohibiting women under the age of forty from selling goods in Pyongyang markets. According to DPRK media sources, as internet videos of footage shot in Pyongyang markets by hidden cameras have emerged, and have been viewed with great interest by many in South Korea, authorities have increased restrictions on the markets. Just since last month, three videos shot in Pyongyang’s Sungyo Market have been shown on Japanese news programs.
While currently, North Korean authorities are carrying out a campaign preventing trading in markets by women under the age of forty, the age requirement for trading will be raised to forty five in North Hamkyung Province beginning this December. Women’s groups are said to be fiercely opposing the move. Pyongyang City’s People’s Committee recently passed down an order for women under the age of forty to return to work in offices, however businesses were in no position to take on new employees due to the small scale of work available and current overstaffing, and were unable to provide wages or rations, leading to the failure of the new policy. The authorities’ current restriction on market trading, aimed at pushing these women back to government-assigned work, will likely not last. Because almost all North Koreans, including the authorities, rely on the markets to sustain their lifestyles, market restrictions cannot be anything but temporary.
According to a domestic publication by the DPRK Workers’ Party obtained through diplomatic channels, North Korean authorities are calling for “a crackdown on markets that have degraded into hotbeds of anti-socialism.” An article published last October in the name of the Workers’ Party Central Committee reported that the Kim Jong Ill had stated, “the current state of anti-socialism should not be moderately opposed. A strong and concentrated attack must be laid out in order to thoroughly eliminate [this anti-socialist behavior].”
This report continued, “Citizens can ease their lives by using the markets, but currently [markets] have degenerated into areas that cause disorder to national discipline and social conditions,” and, “in any city tens of thousand of traders are out on the roads, disturbing pedestrian and vehicle traffic.” The article went on to criticize, “and an even more serious problem is that most women of hirable age are trading in the markets,” and, “women who received a high-school education through the benevolence of the State and Party and dismiss their responsibilities by falling into trade work are throwing away fundamental conscientiousness and even faithfulness.” This article amounts to the Party’s recognition of reliance on markets by everyone, including government officials, and the rampant anti-socialism in the air around these areas.
