Women’s duty to have more children, says North Korean leader

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said it is a duty of women to have more children and halt a fall in the country’s birth rate in order to strengthen national power (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said it is a duty of women to halt a fall in the country’s birth rate in order to strengthen national power, state media said on Monday, as his government steps up the call for the people to have more children.

While getting a detailed idea of North Korea’s population trends is extremely difficult because of the limited statistics it discloses, South Korea’s government assesses that the North’s fertility rate has declined steadily for the past 10 years.