culture

Hundreds of millions of children live in the world, but the situations of them are different according to countries.

Some of them fall victim to bloodshed caused by internal dispute and pressure from outside forces, and others are on the brink of starvation owing to food crisis caused by severe natural disasters. 

Even in economically developed countries, very few children benefit from economic growth and child labour and abuse arise as a social problem.

Then, how do the Korean children grow? 

The conclusion is that they grow with nothing to envy, enjoying the special benefits and care of the state.

The law on childcare can be cited as an example. 

The Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in June 2021 set it as the most important policy to create more improved conditions for bringing up children, the future of the country, even by investing a huge sum of money. And the DPRK law on childcare was adopted at the Sixth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK in February 2022.

The state supplies all the children throughout the country from seven months after birth to six years with dairy products every day under to the well-knit supply system. They are supplied to those children at nurseries, kindergartens and even hospitals.  

To this end, all provinces, cities and counties increased the number of goats and milch cows, created tens of thousands of hectares of new grass fields and built livestock farms furnished with installations and facilities needed for advanced breeding and rearing and dairy production.

Last year alone, various farms were inaugurated to start dairy production, including the branch milch cow farm of the Ungok Livestock Farm under the South Hwanghae Provincial Rural Economy Committee, Huthan Milch Cow Farm under the South Phyongan Provincial Rural Economy Committee, Hyesan Milch Cow Farm under the Ryanggang Provincial Rural Economy Committee, Songgum Livestock Farm under the Pyongyang Municipal Rural Economy Committee and Hwangju Milch Cow Farm under the North Hwanghae Provincial Rural Economy Committee. 

The scientific research sector manufactured spray-drying powdered milk and yogurt production facilities and developed a highly-active powdered lactic acid bacterium for producing yogurt needed for milk processing to send it to dairy production units.

A system and order were established to rapidly and accurately bring together the data on the supply of dairy products from the centre down to the lowest levels, while efforts were made to provide material conditions for the supply of the products including vehicles, freezing and storing facilities and containers and to confirm the necessary amount of the products by identifying all preschool children without fail.

 A nutritional survey, which was conducted according to ages by selecting the indexes for evaluating children’s nutritive conditions at the end of the year after the enforcement of childcare policy, showed that children between three and six years of age grew in height and weight as compared to the previous year and that the rate of short children in their age groups and those suffering from such illnesses as diarrhea, cold and bronchitis went down. 

According to a survey on children’s growth conducted late last year, their immunity generally got strong and the nutritive conditions of children in rural areas improved day after day.    

The WPK and the government are planning to revitalize the overall economy and improve the people’s living standards a level higher by carrying out the five-year plan set forth at the Eighth Congress of the WPK.

Even under such circumstances, they always give top priority to the work for children, investing huge sums of money in it.