OhMyNews:
In 2017, Victims of Brothers Home Walked 446.44 km to the Blue House To Demand Special Law.

Posted to Paperslip on August 18th, 2025.
Please note this is a August 18th, 2025 translation of an older article from September 11th, 2017.
Thanks to a Paperslip Contributor for the link.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Bolds and red highlighting ours.

“September 11, 2017, 14:47 | Last updated: September 11, 2017, 14:47

Victims of Brothers Home Walk 446.44km to the Blue House —
National March Demanding Special Law for Brothers Home...On the 11th, they meet victims of the Daegu Hope Welfare Center Incident
By Song Tae-won (snat)

On September 10, (2017) the marchers walked 23.16km from the Gaknam-myeon Community Center in Cheongdo County to the Gachang-myeon Office in Daegu. On the 11th, they continue the 16.23km route from the Gachang-myeon Office to the Daegu Municipal Hope Welfare Center, where they will meet representatives from the committee addressing the Hope Welfare Center case.

The survivors of the Brothers Home are demanding a special law to thoroughly investigate the truth, receive a formal apology from the government, and obtain appropriate compensation. They began their nationwide march on September 6 (2017).

These individuals, once labeled and forgotten as "vagrants," are asserting their rights by walking 446.44km from the former site of the Brothers Home in Jworye-dong, Busan, all the way to the Blue House (Cheongwadae). On the 6th day of the march (September 11), they plan to meet with victims of the "Daegu Hope Welfare Center Incident." On the 19th day, they will visit the Gyeonggi Provincial Government to call for the truth to be revealed about the "Seongam School Incident" in Ansan, where children were forcibly detained during the Japanese colonial period.

"Even in pouring rain, we started our day at 8 AM, shouting chants and marching with determination. We are on the 6th day of this long journey to reclaim our humanity, to shake off the numbers engraved into us like livestock. Today's 16.23km route takes us from the Gachang-myeon Office to the Daegu Municipal Hope Welfare Center, where we’ll meet with members of the response committee."
— Lee Hyang-jik, Executive Committee Member, Brothers Home Survivors Group

The Brothers Home was the largest "vagrant" facility in South Korea, located in Busan, housing over 3,000 people. More than 500 inmates died there, subjected to all forms of human rights violations. The horrors came to light in 1987 when one person died from beatings and 35 others escaped in a mass breakout. Despite this, the state ignored the matter for 30 years, and society forgot. Survivors have endured years of financial hardship, depression, sleep disorders, and physical pain.

The Brothers Home Survivors Group for Truth and Justice is marching to demand the passage of a special law to investigate the case.

The initial exposure of the Brothers Home case in 1987 shocked the nation. At the time, the New Democratic Party released an investigative report on the conditions of welfare facilities across the country. According to the report, the Brothers Home routinely engaged in murder by assault, forced labor, wage exploitation, illegal detention of political prisoners, double billing for medical expenses, corpse sales, and forced drugging.

At least 551 people are known to have died in the Brothers Home. Bodies were either secretly buried behind the facility or sold to hospitals for medical experimentation. Though the case was once listed as one of the "Top 10 corruption scandals" of the Fifth Republic, it gradually faded from public memory and was never properly addressed in court.

Recent testimonies from survivors (collected in "The Child Who Survived", "People Turned Into Numbers") revealed that even office workers drunk on the street, teenagers on their way home, and people with disabilities were abducted and labeled as vagrants. Without due process, they were detained by authorities and forced into labor camps for up to seven years. Yet, under Chun Doo-hwan’s regime, the Brothers Home was promoted as a model institution.

The director of Brothers Home, Park In-geun, ran the facility like a military camp. He established a chain of command with "squads" and "squad leaders" to control the detainees. This militarized hierarchy enabled systematic violence and tight control over thousands of inmates. Children were sold into foreign adoption markets, and boys were routinely exposed to sexual abuse by superiors.

People with disabilities, who struggled to conform to this quasi-military system, suffered even more severe abuse. Women with disabilities endured horrific sexual violence. Most survivors bear physical scars and suffer from mental illnesses. Every year, they hold a memorial service at a Busan cemetery for unclaimed remains, to remember those who died.

A special law to investigate the Brothers Home was proposed in the 19th National Assembly, and survivors even went on hunger strikes to support its passage. However, the bill was discarded when the legislative session ended. It was reintroduced in July 2016 during the 20th Assembly, but has yet to be discussed.

Editor’s Note: Heavy rain continues to fall. If you have time, please send words of support.

For support videos, contact Lee Hyang-jik at 010-2409-2408.”

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*Paperslip Note: It was largely due to the Brothers Home survivors that the Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 2) investigation began on December 10th, 2020. The original purpose of the TRC 2 had nothing to do with Overseas Adoption.

I personally submitted summaries of Korean Adoptees’ cases to the head of the TRC through a Korean contact on December 18th, 2020, becoming the first person to submit any cases of Overseas Adoptees to the TRC in history.

The official TRC 2 investigation into Overseas Adoption would not begin until December 7th, 2022.