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The country’s state-run human rights watchdog launched this week a policy advisory body consisting of North Korea specialists, international law experts and human rights activists, which will brainstorm over how to incorporate human rights concerns into its policy toward the North.
"The panel held its first meeting on Tuesday, and they will meet regularly to discuss ways to improve human rights conditions in North Korea," said an official at the National Human Rights Commission. "The panel will come up with policy options which will be presented to the government," he said.
The Unification Ministry that handles inter-Korean relations said it "hoped to hear from as many experts as possible before coming up with a clear position on the (North Korean) human rights issue."
The human rights watchdog had long been accused of neglecting the humanitarian plight facing North Korean residents and refugee-seekers under the previous liberal governments, which pushed for unconditional reconciliation with Pyongyang.
The commission also plans to dispatch a fact-finding team next month to investigate the human rights conditions of North Korean refugee-seekers hiding in Southeast Asia. The team, led by a vice ministerial level official, will travel to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar where hundreds of North Koreans are believed to be staying, waiting for a chance to reach South Korea.
Commission officials have already investigated human rights conditions of North Korean escapees stranded in China and Thailand, the official said.
Some 1,000 North Koreans were reportedly staying in Thailand, waiting to be taken to South Korea. Seoul has been bringing in the North Koreans in small groups due to security concerns and a possible angry response from Pyongyang if large numbers arrive all at once. Three of the North Koreans were reportedly granted political asylum in the United States.
More than 300,000 North Koreans have been hiding in China after fleeing hunger and suppression in their communist homeland, according to Seoul-based human rights groups. China, which shares a long border with North Korea, is the primary escape route for the refugees who hope to reach South Korea or other countries to seek asylum.
Recently, however, North Koreans have made their way to Southeast Asian countries to avoid harsh crackdowns in China, which considers the North Korean escapees to be illegal immigrants and is bound by treaty to send them back.
Seoul's human rights watchdog also plans to conduct "in-depth" interviews with North Korean defectors living in the South for an official study of the abuses they faced before leaving their homeland. It will be the first time for the human rights agency to launch an official probe into the North's human rights conditions.
The investigation will include gathering testimonies from escapees from the North's gulag and labor camps, estimated to hold 150,000 to 200,000 political prisoners. More than 13,000 North Koreans have defected to the South.
The series of moves comes after South Korea's new conservative President Lee Myung-bak has vowed to speak out against human rights violations in North Korea. Since taking office in February, Lee has pledged not to hesitate to criticize the North over its human rights abuses at the risk of worsening cross-border ties, saying the human rights issue is "something we cannot avoid" and North Korea "should know it."
In March, Lee's government voted in favor of a U.N. resolution condemning North Korea's human rights abuses at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, in a stark departure from his liberal predecessors.
Even in the face of mounting pressure following reports of looming famine in the North, Lee has vowed not to give food aid before Pyongyang makes an official request and takes reciprocal humanitarian action to address concerns about the fate of South Koreans kidnapped to the North.
Following the U.S. decision to provide food aid to the North to reward recent progress in its denuclearization process, Seoul has eased its stance and said it could donate food if the condition of the North Korean people was "confirmed to be very serious."
But the Unification Ministry said the North's food shortage is not serious enough to deserve emergency relief, ruling out immediate food aid and indicating that it would press ahead with the aid-for-rights principle.
President Lee "has made clear that it considers the human rights issue an important factor that will determine the future direction of inter-Korean relations," said Kim Soo-am, a researcher at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for National Unification.
"His government is taking a more active role than just discussing North Korean human rights," he said, saying the rights issue will become "an important point of concern" in cross-border relations.
In a furious response to Lee's call for improved human rights in the North, Pyongyang has branded the South Korean leader a "traitor" and "U.S. sycophant," cutting off all official dialogue channels with Seoul.
