KB News Desk
North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party-affiliated Socialist Women’s Union of Korea wrapped up its first congress in five years by pledging to strengthen ideological education and political mobilization, underscoring the regime’s continued emphasis on reinforcing social control through its mass organizations, Pyongyang’s state media said Wednesday.
According to the North’s official Rodong Sinmun on Wednesday, the Eighth Congress of the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea was held in Pyongyang from Monday to Tuesday to review the organization’s work over the past five years and adopt tasks for implementing decisions made at the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in February.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the congress. Senior party officials, including Jo Yong-won, a member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and secretary of the WPK Central Committee, attended on behalf of the party leadership.
In a congratulatory message, the WPK Central Committee praised the role of women and mothers in building a beautiful, great and powerful nation. Delegates called for the union to intensify ideological education and mobilization among its members.
The keynote report stressed that all SWUK organizations should carry out ideological education and mobilization by harnessing the power of ideology and the spiritual strength of the masses, reaffirming the organization’s role as an instrument for political education.
The congress elected new leadership. Jon Hyang-sun was reelected as chairwoman while Cha Hyon-ok, Ri Hyang-suk, Ri Sun-ok and Ri Hae-im were elected as vice chairwomen.
In line with the congress, participants took part in a series of political and cultural activities highlighting the ruling family’s legacy and North Korea’s revolutionary history, according to a Korean Central News Agency report shared the previous day.
Delegates watched a documentary praising Kim Jong-un’s “immortal revolutionary exploits” and visited several ideological sites in Pyongyang, including the Party Founding Museum, the Korean Revolution Museum, the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery, and the Central Class Education House.
According to the report, participants said the visits deepened their appreciation for Kim Jong-un as “the father of a large socialist family” and for the contributions of state founder Kim Il-sung and his successors in ushering in what the North described as “a new era of valuing and respecting women.”
The SWUK is one of North Korea’s four major mass organizations, alongside youth, labor and agricultural workers’ organizations. The organization formally represents women who are not members of the ruling Workers’ Party, and functions as a key vehicle for ideological indoctrination, political mobilization and social control.
