[The Editors' Verdict] Separated Families Must Reunite Before It Is Too Late

This year again, the Isan-gajok Manghyang Gyeongmoje (Separated Families Memorial Ceremony) held at the Imjingak Mangbaedan in Paju could not take place due to COVID-19. In response, the government produced an ‘online Manghyang Gyeongmoje’ experience video and sent it to displaced separated families. The words of a 93-year-old elder who participated in the video interview deeply moved us. The elder said that even before the Manghyang Gyeongmoje began, he had visited Imjingak every year to have a ‘silent reunion’ twice a year with his parents in the North. The elder said, "I thought I would go home next year, then the year after, and so on, and more than 70 years have passed with such hopes." Meeting separated family members and returning to one’s beloved hometown is a perfectly natural thing, but it is not so for separated families. Leaving behind 70 years of waiting, more and more people are passing away.

According to the ‘Act on the Confirmation of Life and Death and Promotion of Exchange of Separated Families between South and North Korea,’ the third separated families survey conducted from April to October this year reaffirmed the urgency and seriousness of the separated families issue. The full survey was conducted on 47,004 survivors among 133,417 applicants seeking their separated family members. Among the survivors, 65.4% are aged 80 or older, and half of them are over 90. Considering the life expectancy gap between South and North Korean populations, there is not much time left. The period during which the first generation of separated families can have face-to-face reunions is at most about five years, meaning we have effectively entered the final stage for direct reunions. Nevertheless, according to an in-depth survey of 5,354 separated families, 82% do not even know whether their family members in the North are alive or dead.

Compared to the second survey conducted in 2016, the percentage of respondents hoping for confirmation of life and death or face-to-face reunions has decreased by about 10%, and this trend is stronger among the elderly. However, the percentage of respondents hoping for ‘visits to hometowns,’ which is possible even if the family members in the North have passed away, increased by more than 8%. This can be interpreted as reflecting the rapid aging of the first generation of separated families and the lowered expectation that their family members in the North are still alive. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that 91% of the second and third generations of separated families hope for ‘exchange among descendants.’ This confirms the possibility that even after the first generation passes away, the identity as separated families will be maintained and subsequent exchanges will continue through ancestral rites and hometown visits.

Of course, the top priority is direct reunions of the first generation, and the government is prepared to conduct reunions whenever South and North Korea agree. This survey is part of such preparations. The government is significantly expanding the infrastructure for video reunions, a non-face-to-face exchange method suitable for the aging population and COVID-19 situation, and continues the video letter production project. Through various consolation and support projects targeting separated families who have not yet reunited, the government conveys its commitment to resolving the separated families issue and works to spread domestic and international consensus.

As the deadlock in inter-Korean relations and the COVID-19 situation continue, the time for separated families reunions has also stopped. However, the separated families issue is the foremost humanitarian issue among humanitarian concerns and a matter of human ethics and filial piety, which are the most fundamental human rights. Both South and North Korea must approach the separated families issue with the same urgent sentiment as the separated families themselves, and reunions must resume as soon as possible in any form. The government will do its utmost until the end to achieve this. The year 2021, when it was difficult to be with loved ones due to ‘social distancing,’ is coming to a close. At this year-end and New Year season, when families are especially on our minds, we ask the public to join their hearts in resolving the separated families issue.

Cho Jung-hoon, Director of Humanitarian Cooperation Bureau, Ministry of Unification