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DICTATORS' WIVES CLUB: Meet 16 Women Married To The World's Biggest Despots

Melia Robinson,Melissa Stanger   

DICTATORS' WIVES CLUB: Meet 16 Women Married To The World's Biggest Despots
Defense1 min read

Kim Jong-un and Ri Sol-ju, North Korea

REUTERS/KCNA

Kim Jong-un's wife, Ri Sol-ju, is known as the "Kate Middleton of North Korea."

Behind every great man is a great woman, as they say. But who stands behind the world's dictators?

In good times and in bad, the ladies of the Dictators' Wives Club sure put up with a lot: corruption, political uprisings and often other wives.

Some, like Rwandan First Lady Jeannette Kagame, use their position to advocate for important charitable causes in their nations.

Others, like Syrian president's wife Asma al-Assad, are pros at looking the other way and smiling for official Instagram photos.

For this list, we defined a dictator as a near-absolute ruler known for human rights abuses, restrictions on freedom of the press, and oppression of opposition.

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