Happy Children in DPR Korea

-Laws for the Benefit of Children

 Recently, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea enacted laws with a view to providing a legal guarantee for the promotion of the children’s wellbeing. 

Law on Providing the Children’s Rights

 Adopted in December 2010, the Law of the DPRK on Providing the Children’s Rights stipulates that the state shall pay close attention to their growth and development, ensure that they exercise their rights to the full and take good care of them so that they will grow happily without any cause for envy.

 According to Article 8 of the law, the state provides the best possible conditions, on a preferential basis, for the health, education and living of the children on the principle of “the best for children.”

 This law entitles every child to the universal 12-year free compulsory education.

 This education system consists of one-year pre-school course, five-year primary schooling, three-year junior middle schooling and three-year senior middle schooling. The state earmarks a huge sum to provide all the children with whatever is necessary for their learning–Sonamu school bags, Mindulle notebooks, Haebaragi school things, etc.

 There are palaces and halls for schoolchildren in various parts of the country, including the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace and Pyongyang Students and Children’s Palace in Pyongyang. These are where the schoolchildren take part in extracurricular activities according to their wishes and aptitudes free of charge. They also enjoy themselves at the Songdowon International Children’s Camp and other children’s camps situated in the scenic spots of the country.

 The law stipulates that a child shall enjoy the right to free medical care. Accordingly, in the case of children, the state bears all the expenses to be incurred for the prevention and treatment of diseases; it runs at its own expenses such medical institutions as the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and the Okryu Children’s Hospital.

 It is hard to find in the DPRK those children who live on handouts in the street or sleep in the open. The children who have no parents or guardians grow up in nurseries, kindergartens and schools built exclusively for them in provinces as well as in the capital city.

 The country’s system of providing the children’s rights is a sure guarantee for all the children to grow up soundly and healthily.

Law on Childcare

 The Law of the DPRK on Childcare was adopted at the Sixth Session of the 14^th Supreme People’s Assembly in February 2022.

 The law consists of four chapters and 61 articles. It stipulates that the state shall establish a well-knit system of producing nutritious foods for the children and supplying all of them with such foods for free and in a regular way, and provide them with the best possible conditions for their upbringing.

 Nothing is more important than bringing up children to be healthy and sound–this is the state’s invariable standpoint. Based on this, it gives top priority to providing still better conditions for their growth, irrespective of the costs involved.

 The law also specifies such details as producing milk powder according to the national standards by using quality materials, upgrading the production lines and equipment, and developing the processing technology; supplying nurseries and kindergartens with plenty of equipment, musical instruments, toys and drinking water; and protecting and caring for the children.

 It is not so easy as it sounds to give top priority to the supply of milk powder. No other country in the world provides all its children with dairy products and other nutrition foods, free of charge and on a regular basis.

The validity of the country’s childcare policy was proved in 2022, when the pandemic was at its height. For two years and three months from the onset of this global crisis, the DPRK remained safe, setting a new record in the history of COVID prevention. In May that year the corona virus made inroads into the country, forcing the government to impose lockdowns on cities and counties and isolate work units and residential areas. This led to the suspension of travels across the board and every person and every family faced a serious challenge in terms of their living needs.

 Despite this critical situation the government took necessary steps to ensure an uninterrupted supply of dairy products to babies in all parts of the country.

 In a striking contrast to this, children in other countries suffer from hunger and disease, fall victim to disputes or join the stream of refugees with their parents in search of living.

 It is not fortuitous that more and more people get interested in the DPRK, which pays closer attention to childcare in times of difficulty and advances dynamically towards the future of communism by dint of warm love for the children.

 It will be worth taking note of what the DPRK’s leader Kim Jong Un once said: If the children who were born and grow up on this land are well fed and raised healthily in a good environment, our society will be overflowing with vitality and vim after 20 or 30 years and our country’s national power will grow further.

 -Children’s Health and Social System of the DPRK

 Anyone in the world will be surprised to know all the social benefits the DPRK provides to promote the health of children.

 In the country children are born in wonderful maternity hospitals built in different parts under the care of the state and society, the typical example of which is the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, widely known as the “babies’ palace,” in Pyongyang, the capital city. According to some data, over 40 years after the maternity hospital was inaugurated, over 920 000 children including 500 sets of triplets and quadruplets were born there and left it in good health.

 Under the special care of family doctors in the clinics in the places of their residence, children receive vaccines against various diseases. The law of the DPRK on providing the children’s rights stipulates that children have the right to the benefits of complete and universal free medical care. The state bears all the expenses—diagnosis, test, medicine, inpatient services, trip to and stay in sanatoria, checkup, consultation, vaccination and prostheses for all the children. Children with no parent or guardian to take care of them are brought up at the state expense at baby homes, orphanages and schools for orphans.

In the country the institutions for nursing and upbringing children like nurseries and kindergartens, and schools and extracurricular educational bases have professional medical workers whose duties are to take care of the children. In 2013, the modern Okryu Children’s Hospital equipped with a helipad was built in the beautiful Munsu area in Pyongyang.

 The country has also a nationwide system for managing the nutrition of children on a scientific manner.

 There are a large number of nurseries and kindergartens across the country, and each city and county has an agency for the supply of materials to nurseries and kindergartens. The main duty of the agency is to supply milk, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, confectionery and other nutritious foods to nurseries and kindergartens. Each of the provincial, city and county people’s committees, which are government bodies, has an official in charge of the nurseries in the respective areas under their control and operates a mobile training course for improving the qualifications and roles of nursery teachers.

 All nurseries and kindergartens work out menus for their children on the basis of a deep knowledge of their constitutional characteristics and favourite foods, at the same time as taking thoroughgoing measures to prevent them from developing diseases common to children.

The country adopted the Law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Childcare in February 2022, enshrining in law the provision of dairy produce and other nutritious foods to the children of nursery and kindergarten ages across the country at state expense.

 Once, a foreign journalist asked a nurse at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, “What do you think the first cry of these children mean?” As the nurse hesitated a little, unable to answer the unexpected question, the foreigner said: “I think the children born in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would ask, ‘How much benefit will I receive after my birth?’ That’s true. You may not feel it because you live enjoying such great happiness.”

 The country’s social system established for the promotion of the health of children can be proudly called an advanced system.

-Children Bring Their Talents into Full Play

 The following are the Mirae Nursery and its children in Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK.

 The Korean children, growing under the warm care of the state and society, bring their talents into full play from their nursery days.