The North Korean regime has launched a crackdown on prostitution, the Daily NK reported last Sunday.
| The women aren't allowed to sell their bodies, only the state can do that for them ... |
The defector news website said the North's Ministry of Public Security in July distributed a document to municipal and provincial party committees and local security offices detailing measures to be taken against prostitution.
"There have been serious concerns over the un-socialist engagement of young women and college students in prostitution," it reads and urges law enforcement officers to be "pitiless" in dealing with them.
Sources say it is common to see young women soliciting at bus stops and railway stations during rush hour in the wake of a disastrous currency reform last year that left many jobless, according to the Daily NK.
Prostitution is illegal in all its forms in North Korea.
Local governments are conducting show trials of prostitutes and their customers at public stadiums every week. Most of them are women, but the pimps behind them are rarely arrested amid widespread corruption.
The document also touches on drugs, whose illegal use and distribution are increasing. |