Under the budget bill put forward by President Moon Jae-in's government, spending earmarked for the North Korean Human Rights Foundation has been set at KRW800 million (€620,857), down 92.6 percent from the original sum of KRW10.8 billion (€8.4 million).

Similarly, the budget for the organization's database has been slashed by nearly 71 percent to KRW486 million (€377,201).

Assistance to the more than 31,000 North Koreans, who have managed to flee the regime and settle in South Korea, has been reduced by more than 31 percent to KRW39.9 billion (€31.03 million), with the government saying that fewer North Koreans are defecting and there is therefore less need to support them once they reach the South.

The South Korean government has previously withdrawn funding for a number of organizations, including the North Korean Defector Comradery, a group set up in 1999 to assist some of the people who have managed to flee the regime in finding jobs or to receive education or training.

Read more: North Korean defector: 'I am still not free'

Rent, salaries cut

The national government had provided sufficient funds to cover the group's rent and the salaries of two staff, but that has been cancelled, forcing the group to move to a different office and the staff to work for no pay.

Elsewhere, the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea, which is affiliated with Human Rights Watch (HRW), have said they are struggling to convince government officials to provide them new grants.

Other groups say that donations from companies – apparently sensing the direction the government is taking on the issue of defectors – have also dried up.

In contrast, the budget dramatically steps up the amount that will be spent on cross-border projects with the North.

Some KRW1.1 trillion (€853.56 million) is being put into Seoul's inter-Korean cooperation fund for next year, up more than 14 percent on this year's figure, while KRW504.3 billion (€391.3 million) is to be spent on upgrading the North's road and railway network, an increase of more than 46 percent on this year's total.

Similarly, KRW20.5 billion (€15.91 million) is to be spent on promoting people-to-people exchanges across the border, up nearly 59 percent, and KRW1.57 billion (€1.22 million) will be set aside to cover the costs of government talks, an increase of more than 104 percent.

Read more: Is the world ignoring North Korea's 'crimes against humanity'?

Joy and tears at Korean reunions A trip to the North The South Korean participants, who had been selected by a computerized lottery system, were taken by bus to North Korea's Mount Kumgan resort in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. Waiting lists for the reunions are long and as the would-be participants are often aged, some never get the chance: Last year alone, 3,800 South Koreans died without ever seeing their relatives

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Full of anticipation The reunions were started after a historic North-South summit in 2000. Twenty have been held since then, with the last occurring in 2015. The meetings take place at moments when there is a thaw in relations between the two former warring nations. The system used to select the North Korean participants is unknown, but is thought to be based on loyalty to the regime.

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Arriving at customs The participants will be allowed to meet six times for a total of 11 hours during their three-day stay, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. Four of the originally 93 families from the South that were selected ended up cancelling, as family members were too ill to make the journey to the North.

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Old photos were all they had Families were brutally rent asunder by the Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, meaning that the two Koreas are theoretically still at war. The Korean Peninsula remains divided by the DMZ. Many South Koreans with relatives in the North, like this man, cherished the photos that reminded them of their loved ones during the long separation.

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Aged and determined Many of the participants are frail with age, but their burning desire to see their loved ones again has given them the strength necessary to undertake the journey. The meetings have in the past brought together siblings, parents and children and husbands and wives. But such meetings between immediate family members are getting rare. Most are now with close relatives such as cousins.

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Pain and joy As could be expected, the meetings can be highly emotional experiences — they are likely to be the only, and last, time relatives get to see each other.

Joy and tears at Korean reunions Making the most of a short visit Many South Koreans bring presents of clothing, medications and food for their relatives in the North, whose population lives in relative poverty. But the most important gift is simply the fact that they can see and hold one another.



'Ideologically close to the North'

"This government is intent on increasing economic assistance for the regime in Pyongyang, but that does not really come as much of a surprise to many people in South Korea because many of those who make up the government feel ideologically very close to the North," said Song Young-chae, a professor at the Center for Global Creation and Collaboration at Seoul's Sangmyung University and an activist with the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea.

"I would say that this decision shows that there are plenty of people in the government who do not really have much interest in protecting human rights in North Korea and who are only interested in building closer ties with the regime in Pyongyang," Song told DW.

"That is the opposite aim of groups like ours, who want to support the people of the North rather than its leaders," he said. "There are many people who realize that the only way that real change can come to the North is for that regime to be broken."

And Song believes appeasing the North will cost ordinary people their lives.

"When funds are taken out of measures to promote human rights and instead put into projects, such as infrastructure development, that directly helps the regime then that allows Pyongyang to spend its own money on exercising control over its people," he added.

"Economic assistance is simply going to make the situation worse for most North Koreans."

Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, says the South Korean government appears to be trying to use an array of confidence-building measures – such as sporting exchanges and removing references to North Korea as "the enemy" in the latest defense white paper – to win the goodwill of Pyongyang.

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No new North Korean leaf

But Pinkston says that North Korea has not suddenly turned over a new leaf, and South Korea, the United States and the international community at large will ultimately be disappointed when Pyongyang refuses to eliminate its stockpile of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.

"It is not completely clear why Seoul is cutting its spending on human rights efforts in the North, but it may well be out of concern about these organizations becoming visible in the media, their reports and data on human rights abuses being reported," he said.

"The fear is that if they are critical, then the North will be less cooperative."

There are two broad thoughts on human rights in the North among those on the left in South Korea, he said. There are those who refuse to believe that hundreds of thousands of people are in gulags for crimes against the state or simply because a relative was accused of a political crime and that reports of human rights abuses are trumped up by the media.

Others do have concerns about the North's record on human rights, but feel that building a closer working relationship between the two countries will have a more positive impact and that human rights can be better addressed through "quiet, back-door diplomacy," Pinkston said.

"I think they have had to try diplomacy and to work with the North, but I'm not overly optimistic that anything positive will come out of all this," the expert said, adding that it could lead to an even harsher crackdown on North Korea's citizens than we have seen already.

Read more: Did Trump justify North Korea human rights abuse?