Defector Mother and Son Found Dead in Seoul from Starvation; Groups Criticize Seoul City & the National Government in Funding Priorities

2019-8-14, NewDaily.com

[article title] Seoul City’s Youth Allowance Benefit ₩33 billion ($27 million)…The budget for Defectors from North Korea is only ₩522 million ($428,000)

Defector (from North Korea) groups criticized Seoul City and the national government for the tragedy of the “mother and son starvation deaths” in Gwanak District in Seoul.  They pointed out that the national and local governments spend hundreds of billions of won (hundreds of millions of dollars) in populist policies, such as youth allowances, but they are stingy when it comes to supporting the vulnerable defectors from North Korea.

According to media reports aggregated on August 14, the defector Ms. Han (42 years old) and her son (6 years old) were found dead on August 12 in the Gwanak District, Seoul, in a rented apartment.  They estimate they have been dead for two months. An apartment manager, who wondered why there was no sign of activity, visited the apartment and found them. The water was cut off, since the water bill was not paid.

The police presumed the death of Ms. Han and her son as “Asa” (starving to death), based on the situation that there was no sign of suicide or murder, and that there was no food and drink, except for red pepper powder, at the time of discovery.

The City of Seoul spends ₩11,157,400,000,000 ($9.16 billion) in social welfare budgets, including youth allowances.  Among the social welfare budgets, which account for 35% of the total budget, the North Korean defector support project budget is only ₩522,000,000. ($428,000).

[Note:  The “Youth Allowance” applies to 19-34 year old residents of Seoul, who are not employed, and meet a few simple criteria. The City of Seoul pays each qualified youth ₩500,000 ($411) a months for 3-6 months, and is designed for those seeking jobs or to help pay youths for their “participation in society.”]

The problem is that there is a contrast between the welfare budget for defectors from North Korea and the “Youth Allowance,” which has been pointed out as representing Seoul’s populist policy.  To date, Seoul has paid ₩51.8 billion ($42.5 million) in youth benefits to 20,000 people. Seoul paid ₩15.486 billion ($12.7 million) in the first half of this year alone, and plans to pay an additional ₩3.05 billion ($2.5 million) in the second recruitment and about ₩15 billion ($12.3 million) in September.  Seoul’s youth allowance for this year is projected to reach around ₩33 billion ($27.1 million).

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Government cuts budget on human rights in North Korea

The same is true of the national government’s behavior in relation to the defectors and the North Korean human rights budget. The government has reduced the budget to support the North Korean Human Rights Foundation [established by law], which is intended to record the human rights situation in North Korea, from ₩10.8 billion ($8.87 million) in 2018 to ₩800 million ($657,000) next year. The amount of North Korean defectors’ settlement amount was reduced to ₩39.9 billion ($32.76 million), down [32% or] ₩18.5 billion ($15.19 million) from ₩58.4 billion ($47.96 million) in 2018.

By contrast, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has set a budget of ₩158.2 billion ($129.1 million) for this year’s youth job search support project.  About 80,000 people are eligible. On July 6, 2019, the criteria for selecting beneficiaries were relaxed from “priority application” to “conditional fulfillment type,” in which the support funds are paid if the basic requirements are met.

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Source:  http://www.newdaily.co.kr/site/data/html/2019/08/13/2019081300252.html