Kim Jong Un wipes away tears as he urges North Korean women to have more children

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to wipe away tears as he encouraged women to stop the country’s birth rate from declining.

Mr Kim was spotted drying his eyes with a handkerchief during his speech at the National Mothers’ Meeting in Pyongyang.

Throughout his speech, he appeared to be fighting back tears as he called on women to help reinforce the nation’s power.

“Stopping the decline in birth rates and providing good childcare and education are all the family affairs that we should solve together with our mothers,” Mr Kim said at the event.

According to experts, many new families in North Korea do not have more than one child because “they need a lot of money to raise their children.”

Accurate birth rate estimates are difficult to compile because of North Korea’s scant statistics. It is one of the poorest countries in the world.

According to government estimates, the fertility rate of South Korea’s northern neighbours has declined for the last ten years.

In North Korea in 2022, the average number of infants predicted to be born to a woman over her lifetime was 1.79, down from 1.88 in 2014.

The reduction is still slower than in South Korea, where the birth rate was 0.78 last year, down from 1.20 the previous year.

Then, in the mid-1990s, a famine killed hundreds of thousands of people, causing the country’s fertility rate to plummet, according to research published in August by the Seoul-based Hyundai Research Institute.

“Many families in North Korea also do not intend to have more than one child these days because they know they will need a lot of money to raise their children, send them to school, and help them get jobs,” said Ahn Kyung-Su, the head of DPRKHealth.org, a website concentrating on North Korean health issues.

According to South Korea’s statistics service, the North’s population is estimated to be 25.7 million.

According to the Hyundai Institute estimate, North Korea’s population will decline in 2034 and reach 23.7 million by 2070.

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