According to the British journalist Jasper Becker writing for the Asia Times in 2003, a former bodyguard has said that each pleasure group was composed of three teams:
Manjokjo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 만족조; Hancha: 滿足組) – a satisfaction team (which provides sexual services)
Haengbokjo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 행복조; Hancha: 幸福組) – a happiness team (which provides massages)
Gamujo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 가무조; Hancha: 歌舞組) – a dancing and singing team
Kippumjo is briefly discussed in the 2009 book Nothing to Envy by US journalist Barbara Demick. The book is based on interviews with North Korean defectors. According to Demick, girls from throughout the country were recruited to be Kippumjo members according to government criteria. Suki Kim, a Korean American journalist who has lived undercover in North Korea, wrote in 2014 that one of the criteria was that they had to be virgins. In Bradley K. Martin's 2004 book he says that schools recommended suitable teenage girls to recruiters, with their parents receiving enhanced status and money. Once recruited, members of the Kippumjo underwent extensive training, sometimes abroad, according to Mi-Hyang.
Martin adds that women retired from Kippumjo at 22 and married members of the country's elite.[4] In the 2014 memoir of defector Jang Jin-sung, Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea, Jang writes of the Kippumjo during the time of Kim Jong Il's rule that: "Most of them go into arranged marriages with personal guards or senior cadres cleared to work in foreign affairs. Some even go on to become cadres themselves." Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in 2015 that many Kippumjo members were retired in their 20s and married military officers who were seeking wives.
Manjokjo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 만족조; Hancha: 滿足組) – a satisfaction team (which provides sexual services)
Haengbokjo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 행복조; Hancha: 幸福組) – a happiness team (which provides massages)
Gamujo (Chosŏn'gŭl: 가무조; Hancha: 歌舞組) – a dancing and singing team
Kippumjo is briefly discussed in the 2009 book Nothing to Envy by US journalist Barbara Demick. The book is based on interviews with North Korean defectors. According to Demick, girls from throughout the country were recruited to be Kippumjo members according to government criteria. Suki Kim, a Korean American journalist who has lived undercover in North Korea, wrote in 2014 that one of the criteria was that they had to be virgins. In Bradley K. Martin's 2004 book he says that schools recommended suitable teenage girls to recruiters, with their parents receiving enhanced status and money. Once recruited, members of the Kippumjo underwent extensive training, sometimes abroad, according to Mi-Hyang.
Martin adds that women retired from Kippumjo at 22 and married members of the country's elite.[4] In the 2014 memoir of defector Jang Jin-sung, Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea, Jang writes of the Kippumjo during the time of Kim Jong Il's rule that: "Most of them go into arranged marriages with personal guards or senior cadres cleared to work in foreign affairs. Some even go on to become cadres themselves." Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in 2015 that many Kippumjo members were retired in their 20s and married military officers who were seeking wives.
