Disabled Koreans Face Official Neglect, Abuse

The body of a 9-year-old disabled girl was found near a stream south of Seoul. An accidental drowning, the coroner said. But investigators also learned that lax caretakers at a state institution had not reported her missing for three days.

In another incident, seven employees at Yangji, a shelter for alcoholics and the homeless in central South Korea, were convicted of embezzlement. Shelter residents alleged workers had also raped several patients, but police said there was no evidence.

These are among a string of cases in recent years that revealed neglect and graft at state shelters and brought out allegations of forcible sterilization and sexual assault. Advocates for the disabled say complaints about shoddy treatment from the state are largely ignored.

Many with disabilities suffer ostracism in South Korea, where Confucian influence teaches reverence for bloodlines and people are very conscious of what others think of them.

A baby born with physical or mental defects is considered a sign of tainted blood, and people often try to hide the child. Many parents prefer to send such children to shelters rather than care for them at home, and a few abandon ailing kids in front of state institutions.

And there are few concessions for the disabled. Wheelchair ramps are scarce, and the only way to cross many main roads in Seoul, the capital, is down long flights of stairs into underground passageways.

“For most Koreans, having a disabled person in your family is a shame. Many families try to hide them instead of having them properly treated,” said Kim Young-wook, a professor of special education at Seoul’s Dankook University.

The 1997 case of the drowned girl, Choi Mi-sun, led to a broader probe of Evada, the welfare center for children with speaking and hearing disabilities where she stayed. The director of Evada, in Pyongtaek city, was convicted of embezzlement and given a suspended prison term of 1 1/2 years.

“Many welfare institutions have become safe havens for dishonest people to embezzle funds and do whatever else they like because of a lack of strict government control,” said Kim Yong-han, a human rights activist.

The government denies that corruption is widespread, saying provincial authorities adequately monitor state institutions in most cases.

“The central government does not have the manpower to directly control all of the institutions,” said Kang Ki-ho at the health and welfare ministry.

The government says it spent more than $350 million in 1998 to support 841 orphanages, mental institutions and welfare centers for 77,000 people. South Korea has a population of 47 million.

The health ministry is investigating allegations that staff in at least seven state institutions forcibly sterilized about 160 patients, most of them mentally ill, between 1983 and 1998.

The allegations were based on testimony by former patients and were compiled in a recent report by Kim Hong-shin, a legislator of the opposition Grand National Party.

Kim said the operations were illegal because they were not conducted with permission from the patients’ parents. Institution directors, however, said they got approvals.

Forcible sterilization is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The government defends its legality with parental consent.

“If a mentally disabled couple has a baby, we have to hire more people because they cannot raise the baby properly. The sad fact is that we cannot afford it,” said Kong Bang-hwan, a health and welfare ministry spokesman.

Economic development has been a priority in South Korea, which evolved from an impoverished agricultural nation after the ruinous Korean War into an industrial state in just a few decades. Welfare and other social issues took second place.

A 46-year-old taxi driver in Seoul said he and other patients were sterilized at Eunsung welfare center in the southern city of Kwangju 16 years ago. Then a farmer, he was being treated for hypochondria.

“A few screamed, got beaten and dragged into this makeshift operating room at the institution,” he said, asking not to be identified because he is ashamed. “Most others didn’t dare resist for fear of beatings.”