Triplet threat

last updated 8 January 2015

Pyongyang

All baby triplets in North Korea are forcibly taken from their families and raised in orphanages because dictator Kim Jong Il fears that a triplet could one day topple his regime, the London Sunday Times reported. The number three is considered lucky in North Korea, and triplets are believed to be lucky people who can easily rise to positions of power. The official government explanation for taking triplets into state care is to relieve their parents of the burden of providing for so many children. But international aid workers doubt that rationale, noting that even rich families lose custody of their triplet children. Triplets aren’t the only children who are taken, though. Children of the elite are usually taken from their parents by the age of 2 and placed in party-controlled schools to break family bonds. They are raised to revere Kim above all others.