The exploitation of helpless children is encouraged for reasons in North Korea.

Known as kkotjebi in Korean, North Korea’s street children have long been considered the most marginalized group of people in North Korea nation-wide. They are usually abandoned from their broken or extremely poor family, live rough on the streets. Young Kkotjebi gather in groups in the market to beg for food to live on.

According to the source, Sinuiju City, North Pyongan Province, the center of trade between North Korea and China, is the place where a number of Kkotjebi live. Despite people see children living improperly, they cannot take care due to their own suffering matters.

Kim Jong Eun recently ordered to form task forces to crackdown on the issue by separating the Kkotjebi and send them to designated orphanages, or back to their parents. The task force asserted to provide temporary residence to the homeless. And the scant funds Kkotjebi receive from the state are often siphoned off by employees.

Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s Party-publication, introduced a couple who have raised 55 orphans for 20 years in the mountain, in their recent article ‘Small Mountain Home in Dooilryung Sings of Love and Compassion for the Land”. The state often provides incentives for residents to take in orphans, providing farmland and gifts. The government also used this as an instrument of propaganda stating “the couple received thanks from Kim Jong Eun for their hard work”.

According to a source, these 55 orphans will serve only as loyalty-fostering bait for Party cadres to advance their positions while they will not be able to leave the boundaries of that place and will be forced to farm and raise their own food, living as nothing but laborers.

[Source: Daily NK]