N. Korea exiles young people and their families after their refusal to live in agricultural villages

North Korean authorities recently exiled young people along with their families to rural mountainous areas after avoiding calls to “volunteer” to live in hard-to-survive agricultural villages of Gangwon Province.

North Korean authorities have occasionally punished young people who refuse or avoid volunteering for service in the countryside. However, Daily NK understands that it is extraordinary for young people to be exiled with their families.

According to a Daily NK source in the country last Thursday, some young people in Wonsan who had been delaying their “petitions” the authorities to move to the countryside were instead exiled with their families to remote mountainous areas of North and South Hwanghae provinces in early August.

The exiled young people had been putting off their petitions since April, citing health and family issues. When the provincial committee of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League sensed that they were citing non-existent health and family issues to avoid being sent to the countryside, it proposed to the provincial party committee that the young people be exiled with their families to areas deep in the mountains.

The party committee decided to adopt the proposal and exiled the young people and their families.

“To think not of repaying the Workers’ Party’s love and benevolence with the sweat of loyalty when the nation is struggling, and to refuse the Party’s policies and orders in pursuit of one’s pleasure, is an enemy act,” the committee said in its decision.

In fact, the party committee ordered that the young people be placed in front of a denunciation rally and subjected to “an intensive ideological struggle.” According to the source, a struggle session was then held before about 800 young people at the Socialist Patriotic Youth’s hall in Wonsan.

The party committee also made the parents of the offending youth write “letters of reflection” on how their failure to properly educate their children “caused the Party distress,” as well as written “resolutions” to “go to a rural community and work with sincerity.”

The punishments suggest the authorities are trying to stop others from shirking from their petitions for rural service by showing that penalties await those who go against party policies and orders.

In fact, with news of the forced exiles spreading throughout Wonsan, young people who had previously demonstrated insufficient enthusiasm about service in the countryside are trying to attract as little attention from the authorities as possible.

“It’s tough enough making ends meet in even cities now, so few people will want to volunteer to go to an agricultural village,” said the source. “Young people who petitioned to be sent to the countryside are being driven to agricultural villages under organized government coercion.”

The exiled young people and their families have been given homes, but the roofs are full of holes and they lack proper flooring, the source said, adding that the exiles cannot hide their shock at their horrible living conditions.