Dear Leader demands younger hotties

KIM Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered the creation of a new “pleasure troupe” of young women to entertain him.

Kim ordered the group of women hand-picked by authorities loyal to his father and predecessor, Kim Jong-il, to be disbanded shortly after his father’s death in December 2011, according to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

But he has now decided to resurrect a source of entertainment that has become a tradition for North Korean leaders ever since the nation’s founder, “Eternal President” Kim Il-sung, sent his officials to scour the countryside for the prettiest young women — often as young as 13 or 14. Some were chosen as dancers or singers, some worked as maids, but the prettiest were obliged to become concubines to the elite.

Their parents, who had no say in the matter, were told the girls were being taken on a government mission to serve the nation’s leader.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University and an authority on North Korean affairs, said: “After he came to power, Kim trusted no one and ordered thorough investigations into every official in the regime — from the highest to the lowest.”

But now, after three years of official mourning for his father, the new dictator is free to select a fresh generation of female companions.

Before they were sent back to their home towns, the women who had entertained his father were sworn to secrecy about anything he divulged to them. They were given payoffs of about R48 000 — a huge sum in impoverished North Korea — and home appliances. Women who were employed as maids and cleaners at Kim Jong-il’s palaces received about half that amount, the Chosun Ilbo reported.

Kim “can have a new entertainment group who only have loyalty to him”, Shigemura said.