Top Headlines from North Korea - December 2023 — Crossing Borders - Helping North Korean Refugees and Orphans

KIM JONG-UN IN TEARS AS HE CALLED ON WOMEN TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, urged women to have more children to strengthen national power at the National Mothers Meeting. The leader was moved to tears as he expressed gratitude to mothers in North Korea to boost national morale, “I too always think about mothers when I have a hard time dealing with the party and the state’s work.”
South Korea’s government estimates that the North’s fertility rate has declined steadily for the past 10 years, following its first decline after the mid-1990s famine.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, North Korea’s fertility rate stands at 1.8 births per woman as of 2023, which is below the 2.1 replacement rate benchmark in developed countries.
“Many families in North Korea also don’t intend to have more than one child these days as they know they need lots of money to raise their kids, send them to school and help them get jobs,” observed Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focusing on health issues in North Korea.
As a country that is heavily dependent on physical labor to keep its heavily sanctioned economy afloat, the decrease in fertility is a concerning development for the nation.

It was reported that up to 600 North Korean defectors, believed to be mostly women, deported by China in October 2023 during the mass repatriation have disappeared.
Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based human rights group, said that the group may face imprisonment in concentration camps, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, forced abortions and execution after returning to the North as they are labelled as “criminals” and “traitors” by the state.
Although North Korean state media has not reported on this issue, its leader, Kim Jong-un, has maintained his stance that defectors are “human scum.”
Kim Kyu, whose sister was one of the repatriated defectors, told reporters that “My sister’s only crime was being born in North Korea… All I want is for her to live in safety.”
The rights group identified the deportees as prisoners held at Shenyang Prison and Chanchun Tiebei Prison, and noted that over 300 had crossed at the Onsong crossing point on October 9, while 180 crossed at Dandong around the same time.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency accused a North Korean hacker group, Andariel, of stealing 1.2TB worth of sensitive defense data from 14 South Korean entities, including information on advanced anti-aircraft weapons.
According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Andariel is listed as a state-sponsored hacking group that focuses on conducting malicious cyber operations on foreign businesses, government agencies and the defense industry.
The police revealed that a proxy server set up by the group was accessed in a Pyongyang district 83 times between December 2022 and March 2023.
The North Korean hackers also extorted a total of 470 million won (around $357,000 USD) in bitcoin from three domestic and foreign companies as ransom.

Pyongyang’s space agency, National Aerospace Technology Administration (“NATA”), accused the U.S. of perpetuating “illegal double standards” by supporting South Korea’s satellite launch on December 1.
South Korea launched its first spy satellite via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Seoul blamed Pyongyang for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the latter announced that it had successfully launched its first reconnaissance satellite into space to spy on the South and the U.S. on November 21.
NATA issued a statement claiming it is “as clear as noonday” that South Korea plans to use its satellite for military purposes.