By Kim Young-jin
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un apparently has more to deal with than just failed rocket launches and plummeting international relations: the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
According to News Focus, an online publication tracking developments in the North, the regime is moving to handle a growing number of STD cases nationwide, a development linked by analysts to increasing amounts of prostitution in the impoverished state.
Citing sources in the North, the report said the North’s Ministry of Health had ordered that the Pyongyang hospital specializing in dermatology expand to accommodate patients with STDs.
Separately, Radio Free Asia reported that illnesses such as gonorrhea may be spreading as a result of relations between officials and female soldiers. Citing U.S. NGO source who recently visited the North, the report said a number of generals had been requesting penicillin to treat the condition.
Such problems are not a new one from the North, which more often grabs headlines for its inability to cope with the malnutrition of its populace.
In 2002, late leader Kim Jong-il, the current leader’s father, reportedly ordered nationwide STD tests. It was also reported that the North rejected international groups offering to help deal with the problem, saying STDs were a result of capitalism.
Last year, reports surfaced that North Korean health authorities were alarmed by the spread of syphilis, creating local area offices to administer examination and vaccinations for residents.
North Korean defectors and others link the spread of STDs to a sex industry that began expanding during a devastating 1990s famine, during which time prostitution emerged as a way to earn needed cash. The emergence of a market system has also reportedly prompted an increasing amount of prostitution.
Prostitution has also grown as a result of the emergence of a newly-rich demographic as a result of the market system. Recent visitors have reported that restaurants, massage parlors and bathhouses have popped up Pyongyang run by party cadres or wealthy officials that run prostitution services.
The report said an increasing amount of prostitution is now focusing on soldiers in the highly militarized state.
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