A Public Trial in North Korea humiliates Women for Illegal Breast Implants.

Oct 2025 : North Korean authorities reportedly held a public trial for two women accused of undergoing illegal breast augmentation and the doctor who performed the surgeries. The two women were brought to a public trial at a cultural hall in Central Sariwon in mid-September, as reported by a source in North Hwanghae Province.

The man who performed the surgeries and the two women who received them were brought before a crowd of residents. On display at the trial were surgical tools, imported silicone implants and bundles of cash as evidence. The man, identified as a medical school dropout who once majored in surgery, allegedly performed the operations at private homes using silicone smuggled from China.

Local security officials reportedly launched a crackdown on illegal cosmetic procedures under central government orders, leading to the arrests after an undercover investigation.

During the trial, the two women said they underwent the surgeries because they wanted to improve their appearance. The prosecutor accused them of adopting “bourgeois customs and rotten capitalist behavior unfit for women living under socialism”.

The court session reportedly included a public examination of the women’s bodies, leaving spectators shocked. The judge said they were “driven by vanity and became poisonous weeds corroding the socialist system”.

The source affirmed that “the women were humiliated and could not lift their heads”. Following the trial, provincial state security officers are said to have begun medical checks on other women suspected of having cosmetic surgery.

In North Korea, public trials often serve as tools for political propaganda and social control rather than purely judicial proceedings. They are designed to instill fear among residents and label targeted behaviors as “antisocialist”.

The United Nations has raised concerns about such practices. In a report submitted to the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Elizabeth Salmon, the UN special rapporteur on North Korean human rights, said the country’s human rights situation has worsened over the past year. The report further noted a resurgence of public trials and executions and cited cases in which women repatriated from China were executed shortly after being tried in public.

International observers have criticised the latest case as an example of North Korea using women’s bodies and private lives as instruments of state control.

While cosmetic surgery is legally allowed in North Korea, eyebrow tattoos are explicitly banned, as they are deemed incompatible with the “socialist lifestyle”, according to a newly revealed report. The North Korea’s Plastic Surgery Treatment Law, which was enacted in 2016 and has since been revised twice, most recently in February 2024. The law was found on a database of North Korean legislation installed on a North Korean smartphone obtained by the outlet in late 2024.

According to the report, Article 11 of the Plastic Surgery Treatment Law allows procedures not only for congenital deformities or medical needs, such as burns or tumors, but also for aesthetic purposes to enhance one’s appearance despite no damage from soft tissue trauma, burns, tumors or inflammatory diseases.

The law stipulates that North Korea developed plastic surgery so that “people can enjoy a happy and civilised life with a healthy and beautiful appearance“, deeming it “an inherent demand of our country’s popular masses-centered socialist system”.

However, there are exceptions. Procedures that are performed entirely to alter one’s facial features to resemble another person, fingerprint modifications and sex reassignment surgeries, except in “special cases” are all prohibited. Notably, eyebrow tattoos are also banned under the same clause. The law defines eyebrow tattoos as a form of plastic surgery that does not “conform to a socialist lifestyle”. The law further stipulates that such procedures may only be performed at central-level hospitals or specialised plastic surgery clinics. General medical clinics are not permitted to offer these services.

Team Maverick