Kim Jong-un broke down in tears in front of thousands of North Korean "mothers" as he pleaded with them to have more children and stop the communist country's falling birthrate.
The dictator was seen wiping his eyes with a handkerchief as he led a choreographed prayer to women gathered at a national meeting of mothers in Pyongyang on Sunday.
Addressing the audience as "beloved mothers", he told them: "Preventing the falling birth rate and taking good care of children are all our housekeeping duties that we must attend to." He added that his country was facing a host of "social tasks that our mothers must unite".
"These tasks include raising children so that they will resolutely lead our revolution, eliminating unsocialist practices that have recently grown up, promoting family harmony and social unity, establishing a healthy cultural and moral way of life, strengthening Communist virtues and the traits of helping and leading each other forward dominate our society, stopping the decline in birth rates and taking good care of children and educating them effectively," he said.
North Korea, which has a population of about 25 million, has also faced serious food shortages in recent decades, including a deadly famine in the 1990s, often as a result of natural disasters such as floods damaging crops. .