A group of North Korean students in Pyongyang
With no prescription and no one to confide in, a teenage girl, a senior middle school student, nearly died in South Pyongan province, North Korea, last week.
The girl collapsed in the street in early October 2026 after taking abortion pills. She had secretly bought them at a local market without any prescription or medical advice. Her case shows how the stigma around premarital pregnancy is putting North Korean women’s health at serious risk.
The girl attends a senior middle school in Kaechon, a coal-mining city in the north of the province. She realized only belatedly that she was pregnant, a Daily NK source in South Pyongan province said on Wednesday. Senior middle schools form the top tier of North Korea’s 12-year compulsory education system. They are roughly equivalent to high schools in South Korea and other countries.
SOURCE: Daily NK, by Seon Hwa. 23 October 2026. Photo (fresh888, Flickr, Creative Commons)