FILE PHOTO: A woman in her twenties who was forcibly filmed by the authorities for wearing foreign styles of clothing. (Daily NK)
Enforcement squads of local youth are patrolling Chongjin, North Hamgyong province, targeting people wearing “inappropriate” clothing. These squads have sparked public anger by even cracking down on children’s attire.
“Clothing crackdowns have been happening daily between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. in Chongjin,” a source told Daily NK recently. “Socialist Patriotic Youth League enforcement squads made up of high school and university students conduct these operations—they study in the morning and patrol in the afternoon.”
Squad members find it uncomfortable to confront people their age or older, but they continue making arrests—whether they want to or not—because failing to meet quotas means returning to patrol the next day.
“Each person serves on a squad every five or six days, but if you don’t catch anyone during your shift, you have to go out again the next day. This forces squad members to make arrests against their will,” the source explained. “On slow days, enforcement squad members sometimes even fight among themselves trying to catch just one more person.”
While some days might yield no violations, the unwritten rule is that squads should catch at least 10 people daily, pushing members to aggressively seek out offenders. Even the students participating in these crackdowns aimed at inappropriate clothing feel pressured to produce results.
Young people complain they have “no idea what the crackdowns are for,” and public resentment surged after a recent incident involving a child under 10.
On March 22, a Chongjin resident named Kim was stopped by an enforcement squad while out with his 7-year-old child, who was wearing clothing with English text printed on it. The squad detained Kim and his child for three hours before calling them to the city’s Socialist Patriotic Youth League office for another two hours of questioning.
Chongjin residents who heard about this incident responded with outrage, saying authorities “should just ban sales of children’s clothing in markets if they’re going to crack down this way” and calling it “nonsense that they even held a young child for over five hours.”
“Clothing with English text is popular among young people, so when enforcement squads are around, they take backstreets to avoid getting caught,” the source said. “People will ultimately wear what they want, no matter how much you try forcing them to dress according to socialist lifestyles.”
North Korean authorities target “capitalist delinquent” clothing as an ideological test. Their primary targets are people not wearing badges with portraits of late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, along with those wearing jeans or clothing with English text.
Those caught face consequences ranging from writing self-criticism letters to public shaming via local broadcasts. In severe cases, they’re sentenced to forced labor.
“It’s ridiculous that they turn the clothing people simply want to wear into an ideological issue,” the source said. “These crackdowns aren’t constant, but it’s frustrating that everything is becoming an ideological matter as time passes.”
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