Women in Healthcare Impacted by Sanctions in the DPRK

Since 2008, Ignis Community has provided humanitarian aid to nurseries, kindergartens, and rural clinics in the Rason region of North Korea. Currently, Ignis supports 16 nurseries and kindergartens as well as 6 rural clinics serving a total of 600 children and 80 teachers within the area. Donations of food, clothing, wood and coal for heating are personally delivered by Ignis Community’s international staff, and each childcare facility and clinic is visited a minimum of once or twice each month throughout the year.

Throughout Ignis’ eleven plus years in North Korea, it is evident that there is a division of labor within society pertaining to the assignment of roles and occupations for men and women in the DPRK. One hundred percent of all childcare workers and kindergarten teachers are women.  The directors of childcare facilities are also women. In the rural medical setting, approximately half of the doctors are women, and all nurses in North Korea are women.

As Ignis Community focuses on children with developmental disabilities, the organization is working to establish Pediatric Rehabilitation treatment facilities in Provincial Children’s Hospitals throughout the DPRK. Thus far, Ignis has established Pediatric Rehabilitation Departments in South Pyongan Province Pyongseoung Children’s Hospital, Nampo Children’s Hospital, and Gangwon Province Wonsan Children’s Hospital. Two out of three of these Provincial Children’s Hospital directors are also women. In Pyongyang, the Pediatric Rehabilitation doctors trained to treat children with developmental disabilities are approximately two-thirds women.

Ignis Community (Stephen and Joy Yoon) and the Director for the South Pyongan Provincial Children’s Hospital

Among the children treated in Pyongyang is Il-Sun. Il-Sun came to the Pediatric Ward of the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital to be treated for cerebral palsy in 2014. Having diplegic cerebral palsy, Il-Sun had movement in his limbs but at the age of six he was still unable to stand or walk on his own. After a few months of treatment when Il-Sun was crawling and beginning to stand on his own, Il-Sun returned home with his mother, Mrs. Lee, for a break. Unfortunately, they were unable to return for treatment due to the long waiting list of patients in the hospital. Ignis Community’s goal was to establish the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC) so that hundreds and even thousands of mothers with their children could come to Pyongyang for specialized treatment in developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy.

UN sanctions have significantly discouraged donors from contributing to the PYSRC. The current political climate challenges even large NGOs to reconsider their involvement in the DPRK. Many years of applications for governmental permits and licenses are required to continue providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to the neediest in North Korea.

In our case, Ignis Community began applying for appropriate licenses in 2015, but it took over three years for us to finally receive all permits to fully continue our medical work in Pyongyang. Once U.S. licenses were obtained, Ignis Community was finally able to apply for an exemption from the UN Sanctions Committee. Without permission from the U.N. Sanctions Committee, any shipment containing gait trainers, walkers, stethoscopes, needles, and other medical supplies sent to North Korea would be stopped and quarantined by Chinese customs along the Sino-North Korean border. But despite all of these hurdles, Ignis Community was finally able to obtain all necessary licenses for the development of the PYSRC in September 2019. Ignis can finally finish fundraising to ship the medical and rehabilitation equipment necessary to treat children like Il-Sun. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lee and her son have been waiting four years for treatment and their current whereabouts are unknown, and in North Korea many children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities do not survive for that length of time without timely medical intervention.

Treatment of children with cerebral palsy at the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital

When sanctions affect the most vulnerable in society such as children with developmental disabilities, it is the women who deal directly with those effects. Women are the caretakers and teachers of the next generation, and women are often the pediatric physicians who deal with the health ramifications from sanctions against pharmaceuticals and medical equipment containing metal. As a result, sanctions are significantly reducing North Korean women’s ability to provide appropriate healthcare for their children and their families.