In the DPRK, women form a powerful force turning one of the two wheels of social development.
One of the two riders of the Chollima Statue in the capital city of Pyongyang is a female farmer holding a sheaf of rice and one of the three persons represented at the group sculpture of the Tower of the Juche Idea on the banks of the Taedong River is also a working woman. They graphically show the status women enjoy in the country.
The social climate of warm affection and love pervading the whole country is unthinkable apart from the noble virtues and traits of Korean women who raise their children as pillars of the country, who get married to honoured disabled soldiers, who support aged people with no one to support and who adopt parentless children.
Holding the position as masters of the country like men at factories and farms and in all social fields such as science, education, public health and sports, the women lead a fulfilling life as they promote harmony and unity of society and families and bring up children with love and affection.
This is attributable to the state and society that grant them all rights that should be exercised as social beings.
Only after national liberation from Japanese military rule in 1945 could Korean women become legitimate masters of the country and society and commemorate March 8 International Women’s Day with splendour.
The Law on Sex Equality in North Korea promulgated in 1946, the Socialist Constitution, the organic law of the DPRK, and many related laws legalize the preferential treatment of women and they are fully implemented as the politics of attaching importance to and respecting women is administered.
For example, the Law on Protection of Women’s Rights stipulates that women have equal rights as men in socio-political life and no one can restrict or violate their socio-political rights and position and that women have also rights to elect and to be elected like men.
Every woman with working ability is provided with a job by the state and receives the same payment as men for the same work. And women fully exercise the right of labour as they bring up children after marriage.
While their position and rights are ensured by law, social benefits for them increase constantly in the DPRK.
In the recent ten-odd years alone, state benefits increased for the healthcare of women. Among others, the period of maternity leave at state expense increased from six months to eight, the Breast Tumour Institute rose up at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and the state steadily increased investment for improving conditions and environment of medical service for them down to the lowest local units.
In the country, all the children are brought up at state and social expense and there are nurseries, kindergartens and public service facilities in residential areas and industrial establishments which enable women to freely take part in labour.
In particular, weekly nurseries and kindergartens for women, who are busy with work like teachers, researchers, doctors and journalists and who gave birth to children in two successive years, are found in different places and therefore they can participate in social life free from cares and worries.
Mothers of triplets and quadruplets are granted special benefits by the state and prolific mothers are given preferential treatment by society and awarded even the title of Mother Hero.
Amid the nationwide campaign to make all the people well versed in science and technology, housewives study to their heart’s content under the online education system and the number of women is on the increase these days in the sectors taking the lion’s share of social progress including the advanced technology field.
Therefore, female visitors from different countries described the socialist system of the country as a world of fantasy for Western women and the DPRK as heaven for women and ideal land for mothers, saying that it has become a social tendency and virtue to respect women’s personality and their rights are guaranteed by many laws including the Socialist Constitution, the Law on Protection of Women’s Rights and the Socialist Labour Law and state measures.
The Pyongyang Times
