Compulsory military conscription for women
is barely underway in North Korea, but bribes and corruption have already
hindered the system from functioning as planned.
As previously reported by the Daily NK, at the beginning this year North Korea
executed a new directive making military service mandatory for eligible women
between the ages of 17 and 20 in a bid to strengthen the nation’s defense
forces.
“Drafting of women began this April, but
there are many who try to evade conscription and succeed in doing so by paying
bribes,” a source in Yangkang Province told Daily NK on
the 14th. “The authorities have threatened to mete out
punishments to those who fail to send their daughters to the military, but ‘money talks,’ enabling these families to
evade repercussions.”
Some of the wealthiest donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, or
new-affluent middle class, and Party cadres choose to divert their bribes to
doctors who sign off on fake medical certificates exempting the subject from
service. Others turn to universities to dole out their kickbacks, securing
recommendation letters to ensure their child’s
enrollment in the institution and helping her bypass military service.
The Military Manpower Commission [MMC],
which is responsible for recruitment, has taken pains to preclude citizens’ evasion of military duty, visiting various regions to collect “enlistment
contract agreements” from families with daughters meeting the
requirements for enlistment; however, unsurprisingly, the MMC has been actively
encouraging methods for families to skirt around this because of the financial
perks.
“The Ministry of People’s Security [MPS] agents receive money from parents of recruits by
demanding a specific sum of money, half of which goes into the pockets of MMC
officials,” she explained, remarking that a number of
Party cadres’ daughters, unaware of the already corrupted process at the time, had already chopped their hair
off in preparation to enlist–a largely futile sacrifice thanks to their wealth
and connections.
Those lacking the means to get
their daughters completely exempt from the service are offering up smaller sums
of money to decrease the odds that their offspring end up at notoriously arduous units
in far- flung locations.
“There was this woman who was assigned to a
mountainous area in Kangwon Province and she wanted to be stationed somewhere
else, assuming that fulfillment of duty in that area would be too
grueling,” the source said, citing a recent case. “The MMC responded
by demanding 1500 RMB [approximately 260,000 KPW] from her; she managed to pay
it and was promptly relocated to a less demanding location in South Pyongan
Province.”
While all men 14 years of age or above are
obligated to fulfill their military service in North Korea, exemption or
relocation to less exacting places through bribery is not at all uncommon in their cases either, according to the source, who noted the overall trend as particularly emblematic of the times.
“The fact that not only men but also women
are getting out of military service once again corroborates that money can
solve anything and everything here in North Korea,” she
pointed out, explaining that many initially thought bribes would fail to prove
effective in the face of such a recent decree, but have quickly been proven
wrong. Many joke, she said, about how money reigns so supreme in North Korea,
“it could even buy you a mandate from the General [Kim Jong Un]”
