Unbelievable Facts of the DPRK
- Free housing
In recent years large, modern architectural groups have appeared in Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK, amid the on-going drive to build 10 000 flats every year, while dwelling houses peculiar to regions have sprung up across the country. These houses built at state expense are allocated free to workers, farmers and other working people.
In late July last year, the northwestern part of the country was hit by flood. But less than half a year later the victims found themselves moving into new modern houses, which were built in the afflicted areas and supplied gratis to them. This tells that there is no one in the country who is left homeless or seeks shelter on streets.
It is noteworthy that each of those houses provided to the people free of charge is worth hundreds of thousands of US dollars in other countries.
Other countries also build many dwelling houses. But housing shortage due to population growth and natural disasters and soaring housing prices cause an increasing number of vagrant people year on year.
In the United States, for example, housing prices continue to rise. According to a report on the national housing situation in 2024, the rent has increased by 26％ and the housing prices by 29% since 2020. A report released by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development on December 15, 2023, says that the number of the vagrants in the country has hit the highest level since the relevant statistics started to be made in 2007.
There is no unemployed person in the DPRK.
Its constitution stipulates that a citizen shall have the right to work and that every citizen with working ability can choose a job according to their wishes and talents and shall be provided with a stable job and working conditions.
Accordingly, everyone can get a job they want and think suitable to their working ability and is provided with cultured, stable working conditions. Women’s employment is greatly encouraged with every possible measure taken to make their working easy.
There is no wandering child in the country, either.
There are only happy orphans growing up free from worries in modern facilities, such as modern baby homes, orphanages and schools for orphans, which are provided with all nursing, living and educational conditions in accordance with a well-regulated national system.
To provide the orphans with better environment and conditions has become an important state affair under the special concern of General Secretary Kim Jong Un.
2. Blessed Mothers of Triplets
In the DPRK the birth of triplets is regarded as a good sign of national prosperity, and special attention is paid to it. Women are sent to the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital if they are confirmed as being pregnant with triplets. The State regularly provides women pregnant with triplets with various kinds of nutritious foodstuffs and tonics. They are given medical assistance until they leave the hospital in good health after delivery.
Triplets come under the care of doctor and nurse assigned to them from the moment they are born. Amid state concern they grow at baby homes in Pyongyang and provinces until they are four years old, and they receive special subsidies from the State until they are 17 years old.
3. Happy Korean Families with Several Children
In socialist Korea it is regarded as a patriotic deed for women to give birth to several children and bring them up admirably. A growing number of state measures are taken to give various preferential treatments to families with several children.
A number of policies have been in place to provide prolific mothers with food, houses and other living conditions, and their scope is further expanding
Tens of thousands of modern houses are now being built in Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK, and provinces, to be gratis given to meritorious persons and ordinary working people. And here priority is given to the families with more than three children. For example, Choe Un Gyong’s family is one of such blessed families in Pyongyang. Her family with six children was given a flat in Hwasong Street which has been newly built as an architectural masterpiece. Many other families with many children received new flats in the streets built in the Hwasong area.
According to the state measures, each woman with more than three children is given a special card for medical treatment. And their children are also preferentially treated in medical institutions.
Preferential treatment is also provided to other families raising more than three children including those who are related by blood or orphaned. The state registers such families as those with several children and issues relevant certificates while adopting other special treatment measures to provide them with better living conditions.
Children of such families are preferentially recommended to study at vocational schools and their mothers receive special subsidies newly instituted by the state until their youngest children graduate from senior middle school.
Besides, special state benefits are granted to the women who have given birth to more than three children and reached pension age, regardless of their service years, and to those who have given birth to more than two children and worked for over 15 years.
Indeed, socialist Korea is a country where the more children a family has, the more social benefits it enjoys.
But things in some countries are quite contrasting. There women are fired because they are expecting babies. That’s why they say that it gives a comfort to them to have no children.
