5 Shocking Revelations About North Korea in 2017: From Tortured Orphans to End Times Fears

By Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, December 28, 2017

5. Female soldiers stop having periods

Female North Korean soldiers march during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea, April 15, 2017. | (Photo: REUTERS/Damir Sagolj)

A former North Korean female soldier who served for nearly 10 years revealed in November that women are abused so horrifically in the army that many of them stop menstruating.

Lee So Yeon said that "malnutrition and the stressful environment" leads women to stop having their periods after six months to a year of service.

"The female soldiers were saying that they are glad that they are not having periods. They were saying that they were glad because the situation is so bad if they were having periods too that would have been worse," she said.

A number of the female soldiers also suffered repeated rapes, Lee said, and due to limited provisions were forced to take showers with a hose connected to a mountain stream.

"We would get frogs and snakes through the hose," she recalled.