Opinion

At the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in June 2021, General Secretary Kim Jong Un said that there is no more important revolutionary work than bringing up children, the future of the country, to be strong and sound and that it is the most important policy and supreme cherished desire of the Party and state to provide more improved conditions for bringing them up even by investing a huge sum of money.

Recollecting the day when the supply of nourishing foods including dairy products for all the children throughout the country was being formulated as a Party policy, the director of the Law Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences said: “Laws in our country reflect intact the WPK’s policies for realizing the people’s intentions and demands. The Law of the DPRK on Childcare was adopted at the Sixth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly also by mirroring the childcare policy put forward at the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Party Central Committee.”

A paragraph of Article 2 of the childcare law stipulates that the state shall make sure that the system of production and supply of nourishing foods for children is established in a well-organized way, dairy products and other nourishing foods are supplied to all the children free on a regular basis and the best conditions are provided for bringing them up.

Every penny counted at the time when huge undertakings were being carried on for a fresh victory in socialist construction while measures were taken to lock down and isolate the frontline, border and coastal areas and air routes due to the worldwide spread of Covid-19.

Such world-startling event as adoption of the childcare law unfolded at the hardest time thanks to the WPK’s outlook on younger generation and political creed that the deficit suffered by the state for rising generation is not a loss and the more the fund is disbursed for children, the brighter the future of the country will become.

The childcare law is a subsidiary to the Law on the Nursing and Upbringing of Children adopted in 1976 and stipulated the order relating to the production and supply of nutritious foods for children and the provision of conditions for bringing them up.

After the adoption of the Law on the Nursing and Upbringing of Children, the number of nurseries increased by 4.6 times and that of children attending nurseries by 3.6 times in the DPRK in the 1970s as compared to the 1960s, which meant that the country led the world in the absolute number of nurseries.

Afterwards, laws containing the people-oriented policies at the service of children increased in number with their contents being amended and supplemented. Socialistic policies for children became greater in number and more solid by dint of such statutes as the law on safeguarding women’s rights and those on labour protection and education.

Kim Jong Un who carries on the noble love for younger generation of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il, who spared no money if it were for the good of children calling them as “king” of the country, has put his heart and soul into raising all the Korean children as honourable pillars supporting the future of the country.

On a visit to the Pyongyang Baby Home, the General Secretary said that orphaned children long for affection more than anybody else and suggested raising them well to be bright and honest in place of their parents and making them become pillars of the country by growing up healthily free from the sorrow of parentless children. And at the Pyongyang Kim Jong Suk Silk Mill, he inspected the newly built nursery and kindergarten and satisfactorily said that they were at a very high level and that the upbringing and education of children would go well as the environment underwent a complete change with excellent childcare conditions being provided.

He personally calculated the number of children at nurseries and kindergartens throughout the country and the daily necessary amount of milk and took a special measure to provide them with powdered milk. 

Such parental love runs through every provision of the childcare law consisting of four chapters and 61 articles.