Life in North Korea. From the Daily NK:
The number of child beggars in the North Korean border city of Hoeryong is surging, with homeless youngsters increasingly visible near train stations and marketplaces.
“Kotjebi typically loiter around the marketplaces in the daytime and around the train stations at night. Most are teenagers, but some are even younger. The vast majority of the beggars are boys, at a ratio of eight boys to two girls,” a source in the province told Daily NK recently, using a term referring to homeless children.
“Young beggars have increased in number since last year, with citizens complaining that they’ve become a disturbingly common sight,” the source added.
According to the source, the inadequate supply of food is the biggest cause of the increasing number of young beggars. Many families have collapsed with parents unable to support their children, who are now apparently roaming the streets in a desperate attempt to survive.
North Korea’s elite women are flaunting luxury fur coats worth millions of won—enough to buy a provincial home or feed a family for years—while ordinary workers struggle to afford rice, exposing the country’s widening class divide.
A source in North Pyongan province told Daily NK recently that women in powerful families that occupy the pinnacle of high society in Sinuiju often order mink coats launched by exclusive women’s fashion brands in China or expensive coats sold at emporiums specializing in fur products.
It’s socialism in action.
Mick Hartley 
Leave a comment