Cart
0
Crackdown on ‘Un-Socialist’ Implants in North Korea
North Korea has launched a sweeping crackdown on “un-socialist” breast implants. Ordering medical inspections of women after a public show trial of two accused of undergoing illegal cosmetic surgery.
MALAYSIA-NKOREA-CRIME-TRIAL by Getty Images
North Korean authorities have ordered neighborhood watch leaders in the city of Sariwon to identify women suspected of undergoing breast augmentation. Thus, escalating a nationwide crackdown on what officials describe as “un-socialist” and “bourgeois” behavior.
The directive follows the ongoing show trial of two women in their 20s accused of receiving illegal breast enhancement surgeries performed by an unlicensed backstreet surgeon. According to Daily NK, women flagged by community monitors will be taken to hospitals for mandatory medical examinations to determine whether they have had cosmetic procedures prohibited under North Korean law.
Gear Spotlight: Relevant to This Story
M18 Enamel Pin – For When It’s Time to Bounce
$9.99
$2.99
SICKNESS FOR THE THICCNESS TEE
$29.99
$19.99
The trial, highly publicized by state authorities, has centered on accusations that the women were “tainted by bourgeois customs” and engaged in “rotten capitalist behavior” despite living under a socialist system. Breast augmentation is banned in official medical institutions in the North, and if convicted, the women could face years in a labor camp.
Prosecutors said the surgeries were carried out using silicone smuggled from China by a medical student who had dropped out of university. Police allegedly infiltrated his home to catch him in the act. During proceedings, prosecutors displayed surgical tools, imported silicone, and bundles of seized cash before a crowd of Sariwon residents. The two women stood on an outdoor stage with their heads bowed as officials denounced the surgeries.
One judge called the procedures an “un-socialist act,” saying one woman had abandoned loyalty to the state due to vanity, becoming “a poisonous weed eating away at the socialist system.” According to a source speaking to Daily NK, public reaction was mixed some residents criticized the doctor for seeking money by any means, while others expressed sympathy, noting the struggle many face to earn a living.
The crackdown is part of a wider campaign targeting “bourgeois ideology” and cosmetic enhancements, which authorities say are spreading among women in their 20s and 30s during the summer months. Pyongyang’s public security department reportedly issued a citywide “crackdown order” from July 13 through September 2025.
An oral surgeon was arrested in July after allegedly botching two breast enhancement surgeries on a woman in her 30s from the Notong River district. Officials have since formed a task force dedicated to “eradicating anti-socialist acts,” and female officers have been sent undercover posing as patients to identify illegal clinics.
Amid the state’s efforts to suppress what it calls “rotten capitalist acts,” citizens noted a surge in young women’s interest in curvier body types ironically drawing attention to global trends. As one observer joked quietly, items celebrating fuller figures like the SICKNESS FOR THE THICCNESS TEE. Often seen abroad would never survive Pyongyang’s escalating cosmetic crackdown.
Authorities have not indicated when inspections will end, but monitoring efforts are expected to continue as the government seeks to stamp out any appearance of Western-influenced body modification.
Editor’s Note:
This report details sensitive accounts of public trials, coercive enforcement measures, and state-imposed bodily scrutiny inside North Korea. All information is based solely on the source material provided and reflects the context of the original reporting.
