Raw material supply bases supporting North Korea’s local factory construction drive are struggling with chronic labor shortages, forcing the regime to mobilize members of the Korean Socialist Women’s Union to fill the gap.
A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province reported Tuesday that the district party committee in Sunam district, Chongjin, issued a directive in late February ordering each neighborhood watch unit’s women’s union cell to send two members on a rotating weekly basis to a raw material supply base in Hoeryong. The mobilization is scheduled to run for three months beginning in late April.
North Korea has been pushing its “Local Development 20×10 Policy,” an initiative to build local industrial factories in 20 cities and counties every year. Large state enterprises typically secure raw materials through subsidiary plots they operate themselves, but small and mid-sized local factories depend on separate raw material supply bases administered at the city, county, or district level. Those bases, the source said, cannot meet production demands with their own assigned workforce alone.
Women’s union members bear the burden
The women drafted for the Hoeryong assignment must cover their own transportation and meal costs for the roughly 80-kilometer journey each way, an expense that the source said makes the assignment deeply unpopular.
Those with the financial means are finding ways to buy their way out of the obligation. The result, the source said, is that the burden falls almost entirely on women who cannot afford to pay for an exemption.
“Women’s union members in neighborhood watch units who don’t belong to a workplace are targeted for mobilization for just about any project,” the source said. “But within that group, whether you actually go or not comes down to your financial situation.”
The source added that even in neighborhood watch units of 20 to 30 households, only a handful of women union members end up going out repeatedly. “In the end, it’s only the women with no money and no connections — those with no way to avoid it — who are constantly burdened with grueling work, like members of a shock brigade.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite imagery, or defector accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.
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