North Korea leader Kim Jong-un has been sobbing in front of thousands of the nation’s “mothers” and pleading with them to have more children in order to halt the sharp fall in the birth rate of the country.
Using a handkerchief, the dictator was observed wiping his eyes as he made the plea to the women assembled in Pyongyang for the National Mothers’ Meeting on Sunday, December 3.
“Preventing a decline in birth rates and good childcare are all of our housekeeping duties we need to handle while working with mothers,” stated Kim Jong-un, addressing the women as “Dear Mothers.”
“These tasks include bringing up their children so that they will steadfastly carry forward our revolution, eliminating the recently increasing non-socialist practices, promoting family harmony and social unity, establishing a sound way of cultural and moral life, making the communist virtues and traits of helping and leading one another forward prevail over our society, stopping the declining birth rate, and taking good care of children and educating them effectively,” said Kim Jong-un.
“These belong to our common family affairs, which we need to deal with by joining hands with our mothers,” he added.
North Korea’s declining birth rate
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that North Korea’s average fertility rate, or the average number of children born, was 1.8 in 2023. This is despite the fact that the birth rate has been declining over the past few decades.
Certain North Korean neighborhoods have seen relatively higher fertility rates than others that have been seeing a similar declining trend.