The latest round of separated family reunions ended earlier today with a “farewell reunion,” after which participants returned to their respective countries.  Participants from the North are set to return home via Pyongyang, where Party and security officials will question them over the course of approximately two weeks.

During this time, the North Korean reunion participants are given tours of Pyongyang, which offers the chance to judge whether they have become ideologically suspect, and moreover what items they have returned with from the reunions. Participants must report any cash or products they may have received. Officials from the Party United Front Department take responsibility for a specific number of individuals during this time. These officials change as the schedule changes, and all must later write up ideological appraisals for assessment by the Party.

Therefore, reunion participants must ensure they take a correct stance at all times. One defector told Daily NK, “Every time the person doing the observation changes, they'll subtly demand to see the items you have one by one, and when they say that what you have is nice it becomes impossible to avoid saying they can have it. By the time the reunion participants get home, they don't have half the items that were given to them.”

Items received from South Korean family undergo in-depth inspection. In this process, money, valuables and clothes received from the South are all checked. The same defector added, “They say that clothing must all go through an inspection, and that all the Korean words on medicines must be blacked out.”

“During evening self-criticism sessions, reunion participants can be rebuked if they failed to adequately propagandize the system, but more so if they have not brought back enough stuff,” the defector added. Approximately $100 received is normally surrendered to the United Front Department in the form of “loyalty funds," while returnees must also pay for their lodgings in Pyongyang. 

Lee Myung Sook, who defected from South Pyongan Province three years ago, told Daily NK, “An elderly neighbor came back from Mt. Gumgang. He came to me as soon as he got back because he’d borrowed money from me to prepare for it. Anyway, they told him to give them $100 of the money he received from his family.” Reunion participants say it feels natural to pay the authorities in this way, because no secret is made of the fact that this will be required during education sessions before the reunions begin.

After participants return home from Pyongyang, they must give further payments to those gatekeepers who helped them gain access to the reunion event in the first place: State Security Department officials, the Peoples’ Security Ministry, and Party cadres. “My neighbor said he needed money to buy recommendation letters from State Security, Peoples’ Security and the Party, “ Lee explained. “So I lent him $3000. At the time it was a huge amount of money, but even that wasn’t enough so he had to borrow $1200 more from someone else.

“This is by no means true in every case, but there are a few reunion participants who end up with nothing other than debt.”

Lee said, “The neighbor paid out all the money he had received, but was left with a gold watch and a gold ring. However, the watch went to the provincial Party and the ring to his municipal Party, so eventually he had no money left to pay his debts. It got so bad that after just six months he'd contacted his South Korean family again via China. They couldn't believe he was asking for money again after such a brief time; they'd given him enough to live on for a long time.”

However, people still want to get access to the reunion events for many reasons; familial affection, of course, but also the benefits that accrue alongside the costs. Choi Dong Chul, who defected from North Hamkyung Province, said, “I’ve seen people who’ve stayed in contact with family after secretly exchanging contact details during a reunion. No matter how much the North Korean authorities try to stop it, they can't completely prevent people from contacting one another.”