Every South Korean has paid an average two-thousand-900 won annually since 1995 to help North Koreans. That’s about three U.S. dollars.

In an international forum to mark the 120th anniversary of Ewha Woman's University in Seoul Thursday, Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang said the government over the last eleven years has spent some one-and-a-half trillion won on aid to the North.

He said the per capita burden is a far cry from that of West Germany, whose citizens footed an average 52 dollars a year from 1972 after a basic agreement was signed with East Germany.

On criticism that Seoul is providing excessive aid to Pyongyang, Shin said the assistance helps North Koreans, who suffer from a lack of basic human rights, and called the funds “peacekeeping expenses” promoting inter-Korean reconciliation and change in the North.