North Korea cracks down on women's pants

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jOQDyfwkTarbU65MOwl2Es-AACkw
North Korea cracks down on women's pants

(AFP) – Jul 23, 2009
North Korean women face hard labor if they are caught wearing trousers rather than skirts, under the communist regime's latest crackdown on public morals, South Korean activists said Friday.


Offenders can be punished with hours of forced labor or fines of 700 won, almost a week's salary for the average worker, human rights group Good Friends said, citing its own sources within the isolated nation.

The Stalinist leadership's campaign is angering women who see skirts as less practical than trousers, Good Friends director Lee Seung-Yong said.

"Women are told to wear skirts in public places and in the streets, sparking complaints among them as they often have to work in tough conditions," he told AFP.

Disciplinary officials from students' bodies and women's organizations stand at street corners during the morning rush hour and lunch breaks, to keep watch for any women violating the pants ban, according to Good Friends

Uriminzokkiri, an official North Korean website, noted on Monday that ruler Kim Jong-Il had issued a decree in 1986 urging women to wear traditional Korean attire.

"The Dear Leader has said national character shows up not only in language, etiquette and morals but in attire as well," the site said.

It quoted Kim as saying the country's traditional skirts and jackets are a "source of our (national) pride" and that women should be "actively encouraged" to wear them.

Zaruka already addressed this in another thread here.
Seems it's just another false rumor, like the rumor the TGs will be jailed if they turn clockwise.

Zaruka wrote:

There was a rumor that pants were banned for women -
Pants banned
This is not true. I could hardly find a skirt on women outside of Pyongyang. The women in the capitol dress better generally. I think it is an old rumor actually.

For the DPRK anything that people say here carries weight because we know so little. Some of the rumors have strange origins such as observations from the tour bus. The society is a bit more open once you show them you are curious and not there to harm them

HA - "North Korea cracks down on women's pants"

In most of the parts of rural North Korea I went through women were wearing pants.

Here's one photo I took in Kaesong: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dantoujours/6140512937/in/set-72157627528311983/