Police nationwide are intensively cracking down on street vendors after the Ministry of Social Security issued an order calling for the eradication of streetside commerce.
A Daily NK source in Yanggang Province said last Monday that the Ministry of Social Security issued an order on Aug. 18 to social security bureaus and departments nationwide calling for the “thorough elimination of streetside commerce, which disrupts social order.”
“The Social Security Department of Hyesan responded by launching an intensive crackdown on street vendors from Aug. 20,” he said.
Neighborhood watch units have reportedly told residents that individuals caught more than twice selling goods on the street or holding a sales sign will be punished with forced labor, regardless of their reasons, so such behavior must come to an end.
This is not the first time North Korea has tried to control or crack down on illegally operating street vendors. The authorities cracked down on them in the name of quarantine efforts during the big COVID-19 outbreak, and with the government recently declaring an end to the coronavirus, they are cracking down on them because they “disturb the social order.”
The source said police and enforcement squads are cracking down so hard that “not even an ant can raise its head.”
“If you’re caught selling items on the street, they confiscate everything at the scene and send you to a forced labor brigade, and in fact, about 10 street vendors were dragged off to forced labor over the course of just two days,” he said.
According to the source, street vendors have recently been carrying signs with item lists, calling to people passing by and scrambling with one another to make sales when somebody appears. However, the source also said hardly a day goes by without street vendors fighting with each other over “stolen customers.”
The source said the people having the toughest time getting by are the street vendors.
“They have to take care of their families when it’s hard to even take care of yourself, so with selling even just a single item a matter of life or death, they gather like a pack of dogs meeting their prey whenever a customer appears,” he said.
He said street vendors complain that just trying to survive day to day is “harder than dying,” and that preventing them from selling their wares — and even kicking them off the street — ostensibly because they disturb social order amounts to nothing more than “telling them to die.”
With North Korea threatening the livelihoods of street vendors even more with another intensified crackdown while vowing to eliminate streetside commerce for “disturbing social order,” North Koreans are complaining that the government is behaving absurdly by simply cracking down on vendors while ignoring their difficult circumstances.
In particular, street vendors — the target of the crackdown — are reportedly gathering on the street more and more to openly express their discontent.
“With police and enforcement squads desperately cracking down on vendors because of the Ministry of Social Security’s order, there are several fights a day between vendors and enforcement personnel as some street vendors strongly resist the crackdown,” said the source.
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