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The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has been crying in front of thousands of the country's "mothers" and begging them to procreate to stop the precipitous decline in the birth rate of the nation.
On Sunday, December 3, the dictator was seen using a handkerchief to dab at his eyes while pleading with the women gathered in Pyongyang for the National Mothers' Meeting.
“Preventing a decline in birth rates and good childcare are all of our housekeeping duties we need to handle while working with mothers,” stated Kim Jong-un, addressing the women as “Dear Mothers.”
“These tasks include bringing up their children so that they will steadfastly carry forward our revolution, eliminating the recently-increasing non-socialist practices, promoting family harmony and social unity, establishing a sound way of cultural and moral life, making the communist virtues and traits of helping and leading one another forward prevail over our society, stopping the declining birth rate, and taking good care of children and educating them effectively,” said Kim Jong-un.
“These belong to our common family affairs, which we need to deal with by joining hands with our mothers,” he added.
According to estimates from the UN Population Fund, North Korea's average number of children born in 2023 was 1.8, or its average fertility rate. This is even though, over the past few decades, the birth rate has been falling.
Relatively speaking, some North Korean neighborhoods have seen higher fertility rates than others that have been experiencing a comparable downward trend.
