Inminban
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Inminban (; meaning "neighbourhood units" or "people's units") is a
Neighbourhood Watch Neighbourhood Watch in the United Kingdom is the largest voluntary crime prevention movement covering England and Wales with upwards of 2.3 million household members. The charity brings neighbors together to create strong, friendly and active comm ...
-like form of cooperative local organization in
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
. No North Korean person exists outside the inminban system; everyone is a member.


History

The inminban network was established by the late 1960s. Every North Korean woman who does not have a full-time job is required to participate in inminban activities, which include cleaning public toilets, tidying up the neighbourhood, manufacturing small items at home, and occasionally going to the countryside to do agricultural work. This made women without jobs nearly as busy as those with jobs, and was said to contribute to high female participation in the North Korea workforce. In the late 1960s employed North Korean women received a ration of rice daily, where women who participated in inminban instead of having a job received just . Since the 1990s, the effectiveness of the inminban network has weakened.


Structure

A typical inminban consists of 25 to 50 families and is defined by residential proximity. For example, an inminban might consist of all families sharing a common staircase in a large apartment building. Each inminban is headed by an official, usually a middle-aged woman, known as ''inminbanjang'' (people's unit head). She will ordinarily receive a small stipend from the state for her work, as well as additional food rations. The inminban system is not formally part of the North Korean security apparatus, but supports it. All inminban members are responsible for monitoring each other for criminal activity or political disobedience. The inminbanjang meets regularly with party authorities, and reports misbehaviour to them. The local district office people's committee (洞事務所人民委員會) oversees her work and passes down to her
Workers' Party of Korea The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) is the founding and sole ruling party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. Founded in 1949 from the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of ...
directives. Some scholars say that the North Korean economic crisis and subsequent famine of the 1990s has left North Korea unable to compensate functionaries such as inminbanjang, reducing their incentive to help the state maintain social control. Inminbanjang are said to still be an important support to the North Korean security apparatus, but perhaps less motivated and diligent than they used to be. In addition to surveillance, the inminban engages in managing neighborhoods by, for instance, taking care of garbage and sewage which can be an additional point of income.North Korean Community Leaders Granted Right to Sell Sewage as Fertilizer for Farms
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See also

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Mass surveillance in North Korea Mass surveillance in North Korea is a routine practice employed throughout North Korea. North Korea "operates a vast network of informants who monitor and report to the authorities fellow citizens they suspect of criminal or subversive behavior." ...
*
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Committees for the Defense of the Revolution ( es, Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, links=no), or CDR, are a network of neighborhood committees across Cuba. The organizations, described as the "eyes and ears of the Revolution," exist to h ...
(Cuba) *
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Committees for the Defense of the Revolution ( es, Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, links=no), or CDR, are a network of neighborhood committees across Cuba. The organizations, described as the "eyes and ears of the Revolution," exist to h ...
(Burkina Faso) *
Blockleiter ''Blockleiter'' (Block Warden), where ''block'' refers to city block, was from 1933 the title of a lower Nazi Party political rank responsible for the political supervision of a neighborhood. Referred to in common parlance as ''Blockwart'', th ...
(Nazi Germany) *
Informal collaborator An unofficial collaborator or IM (; both from German ''inoffizieller Mitarbeiter''), or euphemistically informal collaborator (''informeller Mitarbeiter''), was an informant in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) who delivered private i ...
(East Germany) * Voluntary People's Druzhina (Soviet Union) *
Tonarigumi The was the smallest unit of the national mobilization program established by the Japanese government in World War II. It consisted of units consisting of 10-15 households organized for fire fighting, civil defense and internal security. Histo ...
(
WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
-era Japan) *
Work unit A work unit or ''danwei'' () is the name given to a place of employment in the People's Republic of China. The term ''danwei'' remains in use today, as people still use it to refer to their workplace. However, it is more appropriate to use ''danwei ...


References


Works cited

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External links


Photos of inminban noticeboards at an apartment
Yle Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...
{{in lang, fi Politics of North Korea Law enforcement in North Korea