North Korea Releases Human Rights Report About Themselves
Gender Rights
In the past, the Korean women were ill-treated and regarded with contempt domestically and socially for a long time due to the idea of predominance of men over women. Especially situation under the colonial rule of Japanese imperialist were miserable and tearful indeed. Japanese imperialists forced great number of Korean women and let work hard like beast of burden in the caves and wire entanglements in manufacturing war supplies. They even committed all kinds of atrocities such as forcibly drafting women to the war and to serve as sex slaves. The number of Korean women who lost their youth and lives due to inhuman oppression, exploitation and unbearable acts of manly insults, was countless. Out of this, legal confirmation and complete guarantee of women’s rights had been one of the essential issues in democracy in society and democratic human rights mechanism the after liberation. Law for Gender Equality was established by enactment of several laws and regulations on the equality between men and women.
North Korea is a patriarchal society and as such women are second class citizens. Men get jobs in government owned offices and factories, but in recent years these official jobs have paid very small salaries, and sometimes, if the coffers are dry they don’t get paid at all.
This lack of pay for able-bodied men has meant that the illegal (but officially tolerated) black markets have been keeping poor families afloat. The men, despite not always getting paid, still have to turn up at work leaving the women to man the stalls and bring home the bacon. In this situation it is the women who are becoming the main bread winners, this in turn is causing friction at home. The males feel castrated and according to the UN Human Rights report this has caused a rise in domestic abuse.
