Two North Korean women face being sent to labour camps for 'unsocialist' breast implants
North Korean Communist Party members have ordered authorities to search women for “unsocialist,” “bourgeois” breast implants, according to international media reports.
The plan to search women for breast implants follows the trial of two young women, both in their 20s, accused of undergoing an underground breast enhancement surgery, according to the Telegraph.
The women were said to have had implants that were illegally transported from China and implanted by a medical student who dropped out of university. North Korean authorities allegedly searched the home of the former student and found a room where he carried out his procedures filled with surgical devices, cash, and imported silicone.
Sariwon neighborhood watch leaders were ordered to identify the women who underwent the procedure, and both were taken to the hospital to confirm whether they had undergone surgery on their breasts.
Prosecutors accused the woman of having become “tainted by bourgeois customs” and claimed they were “engaging in rotten capitalist behaviour.”
In the public proceedings, the judge shamed the breast augmentation surgery as an “un-socialist act” and said one of the defendants “had no intention of being loyal to the organization and group, but was obsessed with vanity and ended up becoming a poisonous weed that was eating away at the socialist system.”
The case follows an arrest in July, after an oral surgeon was accused of performing two botched breast enlargement procedures on a woman in the same city.
Fashion in North Korea
The strict pariah country has numerous rules restricting cosmetic procedures and the aesthetic choices of its citizens. In 2021, the country banned mullets, nose piercings, and skinny jeans, according to Business Insider. Spiky and dyed hair were also banned.Earlier this year, four young adults faced being sent to labour camps for a year after they were said to be caught "talking like South Koreans," according to the Mirror.
One source told publication Daily NK, "These days, young people are careful to avoid South Korean speech during official activities because they know about the crackdowns, but when they’re with friends, they use it without hesitation—mimicking lines from South Korean movies and shows. They copy the patterns quite naturally, probably because they’ve grown up watching this content.”
The UN also recently found North Korea executed people for watching South Korean television.
