A center tasked with documenting North Korea’s human rights abuses opened at a ceremony in Seoul on Wednesday morning.

The opening ceremony of the Center for North Korean Human Rights Records was attended by Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, head of the center Suh Doo-hyun, Vice Justice Minister Lee Chang-jae, ambassador for human rights in North Korea Lee Jung-hoon and chief of the UN Human Rights Office in Seoul Signe Poulsen.

The center is a public agency under the Unification Ministry. It collects cases of the North’s crimes against humanity based on its research and interviews with North Korean escapees.

The center will also document records of South Korean soldiers taken prisoner by the North during the Korean War and South Koreans abducted by the North as well as human rights of separated families.

The data will be delivered to the Justice Ministry’s North Korean Human Rights Archives every three months.

Created under the North Korean Human Rights Act that took effect on September fourth, the center is staffed by 14 employees and consists of two departments: planning and research and investigation.

The South Korean government expressed expectation that the center will help improve the human rights conditions of North Koreans.

Pyongyang has shown hysterical responses to Seoul’s call for the improvement in the North’s human rights condition, criticizing the Unification Ministry for making a “vicious slander” toward the regime. The North has said the human rights issue is its own issue and accused other countries of only intervening in its internal affairs.
Until recently, the South Korean government had also refrained from raising the North Korean human rights issue considering the sensitivity of the issue and its potential impact on inter-Korean relations. However, there is a growing voice in the South that the intensity of human rights abuses in the North necessitates the South Korean government’s action.

The U.S. and other countries are also vowing strong actions regarding North Korean human rights, drawing international attention to the possible link between this and the issue with North Korea’s nuclear program.