North Korean authorities in Pyongsong have ordered workplaces to pick unmarried young people under 30 for permanent rural placement in 2026. The forced rural relocation order has stirred deep anxiety across the South Pyongan province city, with families of those named on the lists call it a “modern-day exile.”
The Pyongsong city party committee handed down the order on Sept. 18, a source in South Pyongan province told Daily NK on Thursday, adding that it went to party committees at every institution and enterprise in the city. The directive called for unmarried men and women under 30 to staff schools, clinics and cultural facilities in rural areas.
That morning, the city party committee urgently summoned senior officials and personnel managers from each workplace, and officials handed over the written order and explained the selection criteria and required numbers. They also personally distributed a schedule for special lectures meant to prepare the recruits.
Pyongsong is the provincial capital of South Pyongan province, about 30 kilometers northeast of Pyongyang. The city serves as a major regional hub for wholesale trade and transportation. Its city party committee, the local arm of the Workers’ Party of Korea, controls workplaces and officials across the city.
According to the order, recruits will be spread across schools and other educational facilities in rural counties and villages. Others will go to village clinics and public health facilities or to cultural centers and similar service sites. The rest will take up posts in environmental protection work in the province.
The city party committee stressed that the order does not call for short-term labor support and targets unmarried people under 30 who can move to the assigned areas and settle there for good. Self-declared volunteers and young newlywed couples recommended by their workplaces may also be included, the order added.
North Korea has long praised young people who “volunteer” for hardship posts on farms, in coal mines and at remote construction sites. State media frequently celebrates these pledges as acts of patriotism and loyalty to the party. Defectors and sources inside the country say workplaces and party bodies often pressure young people into signing up.
The order sets a quota of about 70 people for the city as a whole. Before moving, those selected must finish short lectures run by the city party committee. The lectures aim to strengthen their ideological resolve and give them practical skills for rural life.
After the lectures, three local bodies will jointly handle the rest of the process, including the city party committee, the city people’s committee and the city social security department. Together they will confirm destinations, transfer residence registrations, assign homes and move each recruit’s belongings.
The people’s committee functions as North Korea’s local government at the city level. The social security department is the city branch of the Ministry of Social Security, which runs the country’s police force.
Forced rural relocation spreads anxiety in Pyongsong workplaces
Severe unease has spread through institutions and enterprises across Pyongsong since the order arrived. Authorities are enforcing the directive in a semi-compulsory way, so disputes over who makes the list are intensifying. Signs of irregularities in the selection process are also growing more pronounced.
The order requires young people to leave the city where they grew up for good and settle in remote farming villages where they have no family ties and few resources. Young candidates and their families are now searching for any way to get their names off the list.
Many of them describe the assignment as “a modern-day exile,” according to the source. The campaign comes as Kim Jong Un pushes a rural development agenda to narrow the gap in living standards between cities and the countryside. Authorities have repeatedly urged young people, discharged soldiers and skilled workers to settle in farming villages.
“Most of the people on the list right now are unmarried young people under 30 or newlywed couples from ordinary working families,” the source said. “Complaints are bursting out among people in the city that, as usual, the children of families with power or money are being left off the list.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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October 2, 2026 at 11:24PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)