Women urged to have more offspring out of ‘loyalty’ to Kim

WOMEN in North Korea have been urged to have more children in order to prove they are “flowers of loyalty” devoted to leader Kim Jong-un.

The secretive state marked International Women’s Day on Wednesday by issuing an official reminder that women should fulfil their roles as wives and mothers by supporting their husbands and children and boosting the country’s prosperity and development, The Korea Herald, a South Korean daily, reported.

According to another report by Radio Free Asia, the act of having children to re-supply the nearly one-million strong army is being praised as the “greatest patriotism” in a series of propaganda lectures aimed at housewives in the northeastern province of Hamgyong.

In the northern province of Ryanggang, there have been lectures hailing extremely fertile women as heroes, another source reported.

The source said: “They introduced some patriots who sent seven or eight of their kids to the military as an example.

“The lecturer emphasised the need to have a patriotic spirit that puts the needs of the country ahead of the family, like these women have.”

The regime’s birth rate is about 1.8 children per woman, below the recognised replacement level of 2.1 births, according to 2020 World Bank figures.

Declining birthrates also pose a security challenge to surrounding countries as tensions rise over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

South Korea’s birth rate dipped to 0.78 last year. Its defence ministry said the current figure of 590,000 active military personnel could shrink to almost half within two decades as fewer young people choose to have children.