A North Korean woman in her 40s took her own life earlier this month when, despite physical ailment, she was relentlessly pressured to participate in the “200-Day Battle” mobilization, Daily NK has learned.
The victim, a resident of Janghangri, Kimjongsuk County, which is located in the northerly Ryanggang Province, hung herself because “she was too sick to go to work,” a source in the province told Daily NK. “But State Security Department (SSD) and Ministry of State Security (MPS) agents kept visiting her place to tell her to work. This seems to have prompted her to take her own life.”
Additional sources in Ryanggang Province confirmed this news.
Toiling for countless hours yet still struggling to make ends meet, she was said to have grown increasingly despondent and disillusioned, lamenting, “There’s no point in living like this,” to those around her, according to the source.
In addition to working on a collective farm, she sold goods at the market to eke out a meager existence; however, this was no longer an option once she fell ill. That this unfortunate chain of events coincided with the added stress of the “200-Day Battle,” the source speculated, “may have pushed her to the brink.”
Such an opinion is founded. In farming communities particularly, it is much more difficult to find time to work in the markets during mass mobilizations. The state lays out production goals by farm, and daily quotas are to be fulfilled, without exception. For families in these farming communities, forced mobilizations mean less regular income from the markets and a greater likelihood of not having enough to eat.
Any physical illness, as highlighted in the case of the female farm worker, only exacerbates matters. Sickness hampers one’s ability to engage in selling at the markets in the evening after a day of laboring in the fields. Moreover, without proper access to medication, and significantly weakened from the physical toll of manual labor, one’s condition can rapidly deteriorate along with his or her livelihood.
“If you’re unwell, you might get one or two days [off work],” the source said, “but after that, SSD and MPS personnel obsessively show up at your place. You can’t even be sick in peace.”
She attributed much of this compulsion in this case not to the mobilization itself, but rather to the increased incidence of chonghwa (self-criticism sessions) and emphasis on political ramifications for non-compliance therein.
