Women in North Korea: At the Forefront of Social and Political Change
By Lindsey Miller
Lindsey Miller is a musical director, award-winning composer, author, and photographer originally from Glasgow, Scotland. From 2017-2019, she lived in Pyongyang, North Korea, while accompanying her husband on a diplomatic posting. For Women’s History Month, she shares a rare glimpse into the experiences of North Korean women, who are finding ways to live life on their own terms despite the circumstances.
Her name is Min Jeong*.
She’s bright, funny and has a dry and cutting sense of humour that rivals that of any professional stand-up comedian. The kind that makes you worry for the heckler in the front row.
‘Why do you keep singing? You’re terrible at singing!’ she says with a straight face to the regular punters at The Beer House, a bar in Pyongyang, before taking their glass and kindly refilling it. ‘And don’t wear those shoes, they’re ugly.’ The other punters burst out laughing while Min Jeong allows a slight silly smile to make its way across the corner of her mouth. That’s the thing about Min Jeong, she has a magnetic and honest energy about her. It was refreshing in a place where simple honesty and truthfulness felt so packed down.
Min Jeong and I spent a fair bit of time together over the two years I lived in Pyongyang. I would go to the bar mainly to just talk to her and spend time with her. She was interesting. She loved hair accessories and jewellery – an increasingly common way for North Korean women to explore self-expression. I’d show her photographs of me and tell her about my different outfits while she’d rate them. I didn’t fare very well in her opinion. I often gave her my wedding or engagement ring to try on and she’d pose with them, comparing them to other things she’d seen foreigners wear. She’d tell me about the cosmetics that she liked to wear and make herself.
One of her favourite things was a face mask which I remember involving eggs. I never tried it but she swore by it, telling me how important it was to look after my skin and reminding me that there was nothing more important than my health. Min Jeong was very bright and regularly bounced between speaking in Korean, fluent English and often Mandarin. She loved animals and we spent a lot of time looking at photographs of dogs on our phones.
Min Jeong was in her early thirties and unmarried. She’d twirl her half-tied-back beautiful shiny black hair in her fingers while telling me about how much her parents were desperate for her to ‘find a boy’. She wasn’t interested and she didn’t have much time given that she only had one day ‘off’ a week which would have been taken up in part by state-enforced self-criticism sessions among other things. Having gone on many dates, the outcomes of which she summarised with a simple wrinkled nose, she seemed to be quite content being single. It was an attitude which I was surprised to learn was shared by a couple of Pyongyang female urban elite whom I met; women who spoke openly about their lack of desire to have children, who wanted to pursue a career. This directly contradicted my understanding of North Korean women’s experiences.
But I forgot that the experience of women is diverse and North Korea is no exception.
It’s very easy to think that North Korea isn’t changing but that is not the case. To say that there have been no social changes in the country would be insulting to the creativity, tenacity and drive of the North Korean people, particularly women who continue to be a major driving force of change. Driven by necessity following the devastating famine in the 90s, ordinary women had to become more economically independent in order to survive. While North Korean men were chained to jobs in faceless party offices, women had the time to create their own economic opportunities which could feed their families and keep them alive. Even now, in spite of living in a country gripped by widespread and pervasive human rights abuses including the most extreme forms of sexual and gender-based violence, women are often the breadwinners, women are the ones driving the private markets, women are the ones winning back more agency over their own lives and futures.
I only had to go to Tongil Market to see it for myself. Every vendor standing behind every one of the stalls laid out in long rows across the indoor market hall was a woman. Every staff member taking payments from the vendors for selling in the venue was a woman. The people counting the money in the cash exchange office were women. The people unloading sacks of vegetables and meat were women. Most of the customers were women.
Through having no choice but to fight to survive, North Korean women have driven changes that few could have predicted would last.
I sit at the bar and Min Jeong passes me a cup of black tea. She starts to scroll through her phone and goes back into her own world. I think about what is going through her mind and all the things she is experiencing but cannot talk about. I think about the millions of other North Korean women with names, voices and stories to tell; who we, on the outside of North Korea, will never get to meet. I think about the world who will never get to meet this generous, kind, extraordinary woman in front of me - my friend.
Min Jeong lifts her head and looks at me,
‘You really shouldn’t wear those shoes, Lindsey. They’re awful.’ She waits a moment and that same slight silly smile starts to creep across the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m kidding. They’re only a little better than yesterday’s.’
Lindsey Miller shares more extraordinary photos and stories from North Korea in her debut book, “North Korea: Like Nowhere Else," a testament to the hidden humanity and dynamism of the people. She also joined LiNK for a virtual Q&A in 2021 and continues to be a friend and advocate for this issue!
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*Name has been changed to protect the privacy and safety of the individual
North Korean Soldiers in Russia-Ukraine War
Insights from LiNK’s Chief Strategy Officer, Sokeel Park
Since the end of last year, there have been multiple credible reports of a significant number of North Korean troops being killed and wounded while fighting against Ukrainian forces in Kursk. More recently, there have been media interviews with two North Korean POWs' being held in Ukraine and reports of additional reinforcements being sent to Russia. Kursk is a Russian region bordering Ukraine where Ukrainian forces have held territory since last summer, aiming to change the dynamics of the war and hold a bargaining chip for peace negotiations.
These North Korean soldiers were sent to Russia by Kim Jong Un last autumn as part of his support for Putin’s war. In return, Russia is thought to be providing North Korea with oil, military technology, food and cash.
Kim Jong Un’s Goals and How The World Can Respond
Since the first reports of this unprecedented deployment of over 10,000 North Korean troops to a foreign war we have been in discussions with the Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul, the US government, and Ukrainian civil society representatives regarding policy recommendations and potential responses.
Whilst it is clear that Kim Jong Un does not care about the tragic loss of life of young North Korean men in the trenches of Kursk, he does care about maintaining control over North Korean people’s information environment.
At every opportunity we will continue to encourage relevant governments to increase information access initiatives with strategic messaging targeting North Korean troops in Russia, overseas North Koreans, and audiences inside North Korea. The objectives are to decrease North Korean soldiers’ willingness to fight for Putin, encourage surrender and defection, prevent avoidable loss of life, and increase political costs for Kim Jong Un to continue his military support for Putin.
Treatment of North Korean POWs
We also call on the media to protect the rights, dignity and identity security of any captured North Korean POWs who may be made available for interviews. The North Korean military does not educate its soldiers on its rights as POWs, and information released through such interviews may endanger the soldiers themselves and family members back in North Korea. The Geneva Convention also protects POWs against being subject to public curiosity, meaning interviews must be truly voluntary with fully informed consent, and not exploit the POWs status or conditions. We have discussed these issues directly with relevant journalists, but it is regrettable that in the race to be first some media’s ethical standards have dropped.
The Future of North Korea
The North Korean government’s threats to international security are real, and they dominate the news headlines regarding the country. But we should remember that the North Korean soldiers dying on the battlefield come from the same communities as North Koreans that have come to freedom with us, are now enthusiastically learning English in Seoul, advocating for North Korean human rights at the UN, and working with us to challenge the North Korean government’s control over information.
It will only be when North Korea opens up and all North Korean people gain their basic freedoms that North Korea can have leadership that values North Korean lives. When that happens all of these issues, including the North Korean government’s threats to international security, can be resolved. Thank you for your ongoing support for this vision.
You can learn about human rights violations in the North Korean military in this report by our colleagues at NKDB. Download the full report at the bottom of the page.
