A woman’s search for a lost childhood in South Korea

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Sydney, Australia – Ju-rye Hwang grew up assuming her parents successful South Korea were dormant and that she was unsocial successful the satellite aft being adopted to North America astatine astir six years of age.

That was until a telephone telephone from a writer successful Seoul turned her satellite upside down.

‘Beggars don’t beryllium here’

Hwang is present a palmy vocation pistillate successful her mid-40s. But her origins nexus backmost to South Korea during the 1970s and 80s, erstwhile authorities authorities successful the rapidly industrialising federation cracked down brutally connected those considered socially undesirable.

Kidnapping was rampant among the children of the poor, the stateless and marginalised who lived connected the streets of Seoul and different cities.

Children arsenic good arsenic adults were abducted without warning, bundled into constabulary cars and trucks and hauled distant nether a authorities argumentation aimed astatine beautifying South Korean cities by removing those designated arsenic “vagrants”.

By clearing the streets of the poor, South Korea’s authorities sought to task an representation of prosperity and modernity to the extracurricular world, peculiarly successful the lead-up to the 1988 Olympic Games successful Seoul.

The then-president and subject leader, Chun Doo-hwan, famously boasted of South Korea’s economical occurrence erstwhile helium told reporters: “Do you spot immoderate beggars successful our country? We person nary beggars. Beggars don’t beryllium here.”

Trucks were sent retired from the Brothers Home crossed the metropolis of Busan to find

The president’s propulsion to “cleanse” the streets of the mediocre and stateless combined toxically with a constabulary show strategy based connected the accumulation of points that propelled a surge successful abductions.

At the time, constabulary earned points based connected the class of suspects they apprehended. A petty offender was worthy conscionable 2 show points. But turning successful a alleged “beggar” oregon “vagrant” to institutions specified arsenic the Brothers Home could gain an serviceman 5 points – a perverse inducement that prompted wide abuse.

“The constabulary abducted guiltless radical disconnected the streets – footwear shiners, gum sellers, radical waiting astatine autobus stops, adjacent kids conscionable playing outside,” Moon Jeong-su, a erstwhile subordinate of South Korea’s National Assembly, told Al Jazeera.

Brothers Home of horrors

Located successful the confederate larboard metropolis of Busan, Brothers Home was founded successful 1975 by Park In-geun, a erstwhile subject serviceman and boxer.

It was 1 of galore government-subsidised “welfare” institutions crossed South Korea, established astatine that clip to location the stateless and bid them successful vocational skills earlier releasing them backmost into nine arsenic alleged “productive citizens”.

In practice, specified facilities became sites of wide detention and horrific abuse.

“State backing was based connected the fig of radical they incarcerated,” said erstwhile Busan metropolis assembly subordinate Park Min-seong.

“The much radical they brought in, the much subsidies they received,” helium said.

At 1 stage, up to 95 percent of the Brothers Home’s inmates were delivered straight by police, and arsenic fewer arsenic 10 percent of those confined were really “vagrants”, according to a 1987 prosecutor’s report.

In a caller Netflix documentary dealing with the events astatine Brothers Home, Park Cheong-gwang, the youngest lad of the facility’s owner, Park In-geun, admitted that his begetter had bribed constabulary officers to guarantee they sent abducted radical to his facility.

14. Inmates are seen lining up based connected their platoons astatine a sports lawsuit astatine the Brothers Home. [Courtesy of Brothers Home Committee]

Records reviewed by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established to analyse humanities maltreatment astatine Brothers Home and akin centres, revealed that an estimated 38,000 radical were detained astatine the location betwixt 1976 and its closure successful 1987.

Brothers Home reached highest capableness successful 1984, with much than 4,300 inmates held astatine 1 time. During its 11 years of operation, 657 deaths were besides officially recorded, though investigators judge the toll was apt overmuch higher.

The location was known among inmates arsenic Park’s “kingdom”. It was a place wherever the laminitis wielded implicit power implicit each facet of their lives. The compound had precocious factual walls and guards stationed astatine the towering beforehand gate. No 1 was permitted to permission without explicit permission.

Inside, children were forced to enactment agelong hours successful on-site factories producing goods specified arsenic sportfishing rods, shoes and clothing, portion adults were sent retired for gruelling manual labour astatine operation sites.

Their labour was not expected to beryllium free.

15. Inmates were subjected to forced labour with nary pay. [Courtesy of Brothers Home Committee]

A 2021 probe by Al Jazeera’s 101 East investigative documentary bid revealed that Park and members of his committee of directors astatine Brothers Home had embezzled what would magnitude to tens of millions of dollars successful today’s value, and which should person been paid to inmates for their work.

Those operating Brothers Home besides profited from the country’s lucrative planetary adoption trade, with home and overseas adoption agencies often visiting the facility.

Former inmate Lee Chae-shik, who was held for six years astatine the home, told 101 East that young children, conscionable similar Hwang, would simply vanish overnight.

“Newborns, three-year-olds, kids who couldn’t yet locomotion … One day, each of those kids were gone,” Lee said.

‘The kid said perfectly nothing’

Hwang’s intake signifier astatine the Brothers Home states that she was recovered successful Busan’s Jurye-dong neighbourhood and “admitted to Brothers Home astatine the petition of the Jurye 2-dong Police Substation connected November 23, 1982”.

A black-and-white photograph of a precise young Hwang is affixed to the apical country of the document, which was seen by Al Jazeera.

Her caput is shaved. The signifier is stamped with her recognition number: 821112646, with a enactment successful the comments section: “Upon arrival, the kid said perfectly nothing.”

The papers notes Hwang’s “good physique”, “normal look signifier and colour”, and she is marked connected the signifier arsenic “healthy – susceptible of labour work”.

At the bottommost of the leafage are Hwang’s tiny fingerprints. She was astir 4 years aged astatine the time.

“That miss is astir apt frightened and successful shock,” said Hwang, looking astatine her ain intake papers and the representation of her puerility self. Her dependable quivering arsenic she spoke, she referred to the “innocent” kid who already “has a mugshot”.

The 'mugshot' photograph of Ju-Rye Hwang taken erstwhile she arrived astatine the Brothers Home, arsenic good arsenic her fingerprints, arsenic seen connected her intake form, and (right) the signatures of 5 committee directors tin besides beryllium seen connected the signifier [Courtesy of Ju-Rye Hwang and the Brothers Home Committee]

“I 100 percent judge that I was kidnapped,” she said. “I cognize I was ne'er expected to beryllium astatine Brothers [Home] arsenic a four-year-old.”

A profoundly unsettling find was besides made successful her adoption records: Her name, Ju-rye, was fixed to her by the home’s director, Park, who named her aft the Jurye-dong neighbourhood wherever constabulary accidental she was recovered – the aforesaid neighbourhood wherever the Brothers Home was located.

“I felt violated. I felt sick successful the stomach,” she said, recalling the origins of her name.

Growing up, Hwang said she had fragmented memories of South Korea.

Of the fewer she could recollect, 1 was of a towering robust gate. The different was of children splashing successful a shallow underground pool. For years, she dismissed those memories arsenic astir apt imagined. Then, successful 2022, six years aft the telephone with the journalist, she yet mustered capable courageousness to analyse her past with the assistance of a chap adoptee from South Korea, who had sent her links to a website detailing what the Brothers Home erstwhile looked like.

“I was conscionable toggling done the antithetic menus of that website erstwhile 2 vivid images clicked for me,” Hwang said, snapping her fingers.

“The ample robust gross – that was the entrance. The underground excavation was wrong the facility,” she said, matching her unexplained dreams with the images featured connected the website.

“It was overwhelming to cognize that I was not imagining my memories of Korea,” she said.

Hwang would observe that she was kept astatine the Brothers Home for 9 months earlier being sent to a adjacent orphanage, wherever she was deemed a “good candidate” for planetary adoption.

In the consultation notes for eventual adoption, the circumstances of Hwang’s alleged abandonment and her admittance to Brothers Home, arsenic good arsenic details of her health, were each provided by Park. She was recorded arsenic being successful bully health, weighing 15.3kg (33.7lb), measuring 101cm (3.3ft) successful height, and having a afloat acceptable of 20 steadfast teeth.

Adoption records besides described her arsenic an outgoing and well-behaved young girl. Hwang was noted for her intelligence: she could constitute her ain sanction “perfectly”, was capable to number successful numbers, recognised antithetic colours, and was besides susceptible of reciting verses from the Bible from memory.

“It seems unusual that I had those skills and was good nourished, and yet the constabulary claimed I was a thoroughfare kid. It conscionable doesn’t adhd up,” said Hwang, who is convinced she was good looked aft earlier she was taken to the Brothers Home.

25. JuRye present lives successful Sydney, Australia. (taken by me)

In 2021, Hwang submitted her DNA to an planetary genetics registry and was instantly matched with a fully-related younger member who had besides been adopted to Belgium. She describes her archetypal video telephone with her long-lost member arsenic “surreal”.

“For an adopted idiosyncratic who has ne'er had immoderate humor relatives their full life, coming face-to-face with a nonstop sibling was jaw-dropping,” Hwang recalled.

“There was nary denying we were related,” she said.

“He looked truthful overmuch similar maine – the signifier of his face, the features, adjacent our long, slender hands.”

Hwang soon learned that she had different younger brother, and some had been adopted to Belgium successful aboriginal 1986.

Their adoption files, besides seen by Al Jazeera, authorities the brothers were “abandoned” successful Anyang, a metropolis astir 300km (186 miles) from Busan, successful August 1982, astir 3 months earlier Hwang was taken to Brothers Home.

The timing of her brothers’ adoptions made her wonderment whether her parents whitethorn person temporarily near her with relatives successful Busan, a communal signifier successful Korean families, perchance portion they searched for their missing sons, who whitethorn besides person been taken disconnected the streets successful akin circumstances.

Among the fewer vivid memories that Hwang inactive retains from her precise aboriginal childhood, earlier the Brothers Home, is of a pistillate she believes whitethorn person been her biologic mother.

“The lone representation that stayed with me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears, “is of a pistillate with medium-length permed hair. I lone retrieve her from the backmost – I person nary representation of her from the front.”

Hwang inactive holds connected to anticipation that 1 time she volition beryllium reunited with her parent and volition observe her existent identity.

“I would emotion to cognize my existent sanction – the sanction my parents gave me,” she said.

Truth and Reconciliation

In 2022, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared that superior quality rights violations had occurred astatine Brothers Home. This included enforced disappearances, arbitrary confinement, forced labour without pay, intersexual violence, carnal abuse, and adjacent deaths.

In the report, the committee stated the “rules of rounding up vagrants to beryllium unconstitutional/illegal”, that “the process of inmates being confined to beryllium illegal”, and “suspicious acts” were discovered “in aesculapian practices and the process of dealing with dormant inmates”.

Most children astatine the location were besides recovered to person been excluded from compulsory education.

The committee concluded that specified acts had violated the “right to the pursuit of happiness, state of relocation, close to liberty, the close to beryllium escaped from forced oregon compulsory labour, and the close to education, arsenic guaranteed by the Constitution”.

The government, the committee said, was alert of specified violations but “tried to systematically downscale and conceal the case”.

Children with shaven heads basal successful queues, with hands down their backs.

The committee besides confirmed for the archetypal clip earlier this twelvemonth that Brothers Home had collaborated with different childcare centres to facilitate amerciable overseas adoptions.

Although galore records were reportedly destroyed by the home’s erstwhile management, investigators verified that astatine slightest 31 children had been illegally sent overseas for adoption. The enquiry yet identified 17 biologic mothers linked to children sent for adoption overseas.

In 1 case, the committee uncovered grounds of a heavy large pistillate who had been forcibly taken to Brothers Home. She gave commencement wrong the facility, and her babe was handed implicit to an adoption bureau conscionable a period aboriginal and past sent overseas 3 months aft that.

Investigators recovered a missive of consent to adoption signed by the mother. But the adoption bureau had taken custody of the babe the precise time the signifier was signed, leaving nary accidental for the parent to reconsider oregon retreat consent.

The committee noted the precocious likelihood of the parent being coerced into consenting to the overseas adoption of her kid portion held wrong the Brothers Home, from which she could neither permission nor attraction adequately for her newborn nether the home’s oppressive conditions.

Park In-keun and his wife, Lim Young-soon, some held enforcement positions astatine the Brothers Home, and are said to person wielded tremendous amounts of powerfulness astatine the facility. [Courtesy of Brothers Home Welfare Center Incident Countermeasures Committee]

Brothers Home’s erstwhile director, Park, died successful June 2016 successful South Korea. He was ne'er held accountable for the unlawful confinement that occurred astatine his facility, nor did helium ever apologise for his relation successful it.

The commission’s 2022 study powerfully recommended that the South Korean authorities contented a ceremonial authorities apology for its relation successful the abuses committed astatine the home. To date, neither the Busan metropolis authorities nor the South Korean nationalist constabulary person apologised for engagement successful the abuses oregon the consequent cover-up, and, contempt mounting pressure, nary president of the state has issued a ceremonial apology.

In mid-September, however, the authorities withdrew its appeals against admitting liability for quality rights violations that occurred astatine the facility, pursuing a Supreme Court ruling successful March. The determination is expected to expedite compensation for a fig of the victims who had filed lawsuits against the authorities implicit the maltreatment they suffered.

Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho described the determination to driblet the appeals arsenic a “testament to the state’s designation of the quality rights violations [that occurred] owed to the authorities unit successful the authoritarian era”.

This week, the Supreme Court further ruled that the authorities indispensable besides compensate victims who were forcibly confined astatine Brothers Home earlier 1975, erstwhile a authorities directive officially authorised a nationwide crackdown connected “vagrants”.

The tribunal recovered that the authorities had “consistently carried retired crackdowns and confinement measures against vagrants from the 1950s onwards and expanded these practices” nether the directive.

Hwang submitted her lawsuit to the committee for probe successful January 2025, and she received an authoritative effect confirming that, arsenic a child, she was subjected to “gross quality rights violations resulting from the unlawful and grossly unjust workout of authoritative authority”.

Park Sun-yi, left, a unfortunate of Brothers Home, weeps during a quality league astatine the Truth and Reconciliation Commission bureau successful Seoul

‘Child-exporting nation’

In the decades aft the 1950-53 Korean War, much than 170,000 children were sent to Western countries for adoption, arsenic what started arsenic a humanitarian effort to rescue warfare orphans gradually evolved into a lucrative concern for backstage adoption agencies.

Just past month, President Lee Jae Myung issued a historical apology implicit South Korea’s erstwhile overseas adoption programme, acknowledging the “pain” and “suffering” endured by adoptees and their commencement and adoptive families.

Lee spoke of a “shameful chapter” successful South Korea’s caller past and its erstwhile estimation arsenic a “child-exporting nation”.

The president’s apology came respective months aft the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released different study concluding that wide quality rights violations had occurred wrong South Korea’s planetary adoption system.

The committee recovered that the authorities had actively promoted intercountry adoptions and granted backstage agencies adjacent full power implicit the process, giving them “immense powerfulness implicit the lives of the children”.

Adoption agencies were entrusted with guardianship and consent rights of orphans, allowing them to prosecute their fiscal interests unchecked. They besides acceptable their ain adoption fees and were known to unit adoptive parents to wage further “donations”.

The probe besides revealed that agencies routinely falsified records, obscuring oregon erasing the identities and household connections of children to marque them look much “adoptable”. This included altering birthdates, names, photographs, and adjacent the circumstances of abandonment to acceptable the ineligible explanation of an “orphan”.

Under laws successful spot astatine the clip of Hwang’s adoption, South Korean children could not beryllium sent overseas until a nationalist process had been conducted to find whether a kid had immoderate surviving relatives.

Adoption agencies, including institutions specified arsenic the Brothers Home, were legally required to people nationalist notices successful newspapers and connected tribunal bulletin boards, stating wherever and erstwhile a kid had been found. This process was intended to assistance reunite missing children with their parents oregon guardians, and to forestall overseas adoption portion those searches were inactive nether way.

However, the committee recovered that successful cases involving the Brothers Home, specified notices were published lone aft ceremonial adoption proceedings had begun. This indicated that the hunt for an orphan’s relatives was considered a procedural formality alternatively than a genuine safeguard to support children who inactive had family.

The notices were besides published by a territory bureau successful Seoul alternatively than successful Busan, wherever the children had primitively been reported arsenic found.

The committee concluded that the authorities had failed “to uphold its work to support the cardinal quality rights of its citizens” and had enabled the “mass exportation of children” to fulfill planetary demand.

‘Right your wrongs’

Hwang present lives successful Sydney, Australia, and her caller location is coincidentally the aforesaid metropolis wherever immoderate of the extended household of the precocious Brothers Home director, Park, present live.

An probe by 101 East revealed that the director’s brothers-in-law, Lim Young-soon and Joo Chong-chan, who were directors astatine the Brothers Home, migrated to Sydney successful the precocious 1980s.

Park’s daughter, Park Jee-hee, and her husband, Alex Min, besides moved to Australia and were operating a play driving scope and sports analyzable successful Sydney’s outer suburbs, 101 East discovered.

Noting the coincidence of surviving successful the aforesaid metropolis arsenic relatives of the precocious Brothers Home director, Hwang said she believed “things hap for a reason”.

“I’m not definite why, but possibly there’s a crushed I’m here,” Hwang told Al Jazeera, adding that if she ever had the accidental to talk with the Park family, her connection would beryllium simple: “Right your wrongs.”

Park’s son, Park Cheong-gwang, admitted successful the Netflix documentary bid astir Brothers Home – titled “The Echoes of Survivors” – that abuses had taken spot astatine the centre.

But helium insisted that the South Korean authorities was mostly liable and that his begetter had told him that enactment astatine the location was carried retired nether nonstop orders from the country’s then-President Chun, who died successful 2021.

9. Park In Geun was awarded the Order of Civil Merit medal from President Chun Doo Hwan successful 1984. [Supplied by Netflix Korea]

Park Cheong-gwang besides utilized his quality successful the Netflix amusement to contented the archetypal ceremonial apology of immoderate subordinate of his family.

He apologised to “the victims and their families who suffered during that clip astatine the Brothers Home, and for each the symptom they’ve endured since”.

Other relatives surviving successful Australia person dismissed the reported abuses astatine the home.

Hwang said their deficiency of remorse “was sickening”.

“They’re moving distant from their history,” she said.

“It’s not lone the adoption, but it’s the information that everything successful my beingness was erased,” she added.

“My identity, my contiguous family, my extended family, everything was erased. No 1 has the close to bash that.”

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