Mick Hartley

From the Daily NK:

A woman who recently gave birth at a maternity center in Yanggang Province immediately put the baby up for adoption, a source in the province told Daily NK on Jan. 5, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The woman, who ekes out a living on a farm in Samsu County, found out she was pregnant last year and considered having an abortion, but could not because she lacked the money.

In June of last year, she asked a distant relative to find someone to adopt the baby as soon as it was born. Five months later, she was introduced to a childless couple who had been married for more than five years. The woman promised to give the child to them the day after she gave birth.

After the woman gave birth on Dec. 31, the couple took the newborn from the maternity center as promised. Kim’s sad story then spread around the maternity center.

“People sympathized with how hard it is to raise a child without any money or even one gram of rice to your name,” the source said, adding: “They also agreed that if you can’t raise a child yourself, it’s better to give it up for adoption to a family that can.”

New and expectant mothers at maternity centers in North Korea are expected to provide for their own needs before and after their pregnancies, including preparing their own meals and collecting firewood to heat their rooms.

“Nowadays, it is common for people in extreme hardship to abandon their newborn children,” the source said. “This happens less in cities than in rural areas, where many people live in poverty. I’m sure this baby would have been abandoned somewhere if the mother hadn’t found someone willing to adopt the child.”

She added: “This is a problem that exists throughout our society. The government’s policy of simply encouraging childbirth is being ridiculed by the people as a result.”

North Korea has a low birth rate. Not as bad as far as we can tell as South Korea, which has a rapidly declining population and regularly features at or near the bottom of charts for fertility rates, but not much better. Pyongyang's regular exhortations to women to stay at home and have children is clearly fantasy when women must keep working – scrabbling for food – and can't afford to feed a new child.