Thursday, October 2, 2025 - North Korea has launched an aggressive crackdown on women undergoing cosmetic surgery, focusing particularly on breast implants, which authorities are condemning as “capitalist” and “anti-socialist” acts. Reports from defectors and South Korean outlet Daily NK say Kim Jong Un’s regime is using undercover agents, neighbourhood patrols, and public trials to punish both doctors and women who undergo the procedures.
In mid-September, a public trial was held in Sariwon, North
Hwanghae Province, where a former medical student accused of performing breast
augmentation surgeries with smuggled Chinese silicone was brought before the
court alongside two women in their 20s who had received the operations. During
the trial, medical tools, cash, and packets of silicone seized by the Security
Bureau were displayed as evidence. Witnesses said the accused doctor kept his
head bowed throughout the proceedings, while the two women were visibly
humiliated and unable to look up. They reportedly admitted they wanted the
surgery to “improve their figure.”
The prosecutor denounced them in front of the crowd,
declaring: “Women living in a socialist system have been corrupted by bourgeois
customs and have committed rotten capitalist acts.” The presiding judge
promised “strict punishment” and said the trio had engaged in an
“anti-socialist act.”
The trial also revealed that North Korea’s Security Bureau
has begun carrying out invasive physical examinations on women suspected of
having breast surgery. Neighbourhood watch leaders are now tasked with
identifying women whose bodies appear altered and sending them for checks.
According to sources, many young women in Sariwon are living in fear, worried
they could be targeted for suspicion at any moment. Strike teams have also been
deployed in Pyongyang, operating undercover to entrap surgeons performing
illegal procedures.
“Strike teams have already been deployed in central
districts of Pyongyang and are operating in plain clothes,” a source told Daily
NK. “Women or doctors caught will face criminal punishment, including terms in
labour training camps, on charges of anti-socialist behaviour.”
Officials say the crackdown comes in response to a rise in
cosmetic procedures such as breast augmentation and double-eyelid surgery. The
Ministry of Social Security issued a directive stating that “women in the
socialist system are being tainted by bourgeois ideology and are engaging in
all kinds of decadent acts.”
Though the surgeries are often dangerous, relying on
contraband silicone and carried out in unsafe conditions, demand has reportedly
been growing among young women influenced by South Korean beauty standards. The
campaign is seen as part of the Kim regime’s broader effort to maintain strict
control over the personal lives of citizens, with human rights groups noting
that trials, forced confessions, and threats of imprisonment are being used to
deter women from seeking cosmetic procedures.
0 Comments