Two North Korean high school girls in Hyesan remain traumatized after encountering a male flasher as they headed to clean statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il earlier this month, a reporting partner in Yanggang Province told Daily NK last Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
Kim Il Sung’s birthday falls on Apr. 15, and all schools in Hyesan handed down instructions to students in late March that they “take part in cleaning the statues with feelings of loyalty.” The two unfortunate students had been cleaning the statues every day from Apr. 1 until the day of the incident.
“The girls live near one another, so they used to meet at a designated place at 5 AM every morning and go to clean the statues. On the day of the incident, they met at the agreed spot and were heading to the statues when they encountered the flasher,” the reporting partner said.
As the girls were walking along the empty early morning road, a man stopped in front of them, pulled down his pants and exposed himself to them.
Too shocked to scream out, the two girls ran back home. Since then, they have been afraid to go to school or even leave their homes due to the shock of the event, and remain tormented by memories of what happened to them, the reporting partner said.
“It seems the flasher knew that the students went to clean the statues at 5 AM and waited for his chance to do what he did. I suspect this kind of incident will continue to occur, and given there are no clues, it won’t be easy to catch the flasher,” she explained.
“The fundamental reason this incident happened is because students — compelled to show loyalty — are being called to clean the statues in the early morning everyday. One has to ask whether loyalty really emerges from cleaning statues.”
As part of efforts to promote loyalty toward the regime, North Korea has been mobilizing students — from elementary school up to university — to clean the area around statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il from 5 AM to 7 AM since the 1980s.
Students who do not proactively take part in cleaning the statues are criticized during their review periods for their lack of loyalty, while students who clean the statues every day are praised as model students. Given these circumstances, many students take part in the cleaning of the areas around statues at least 15 days a month.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea and China. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.
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