The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the public broadcaster of the United Kingdom, has published a special report on the sexual assault of women by South Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War, which has been met with a strong response from those involved in diplomacy between Japan and South Korea. The BBC also pointed out the double standards in Korea. On March 27, the BBC posted an article on its website titled “1968 – The Year Hundreds of Women Suffered,” detailing the circumstances of two Vietnamese who were victimized by Korean soldiers. One of the women was sexually assaulted and was pregnant with three children.
Mixed-race children born to Korean soldiers who sexually assaulted local women during the Vietnam War are known by the derogatory term “Lai Dai Han” and have suffered discrimination in Vietnam. The number of such children is not known, but it is believed to be between 5,000 and 30,000.
The article mentions that the Lai Dai Han and their mothers and families have suffered from discrimination, and introduces the appeal of a female victim who says, “We need the Koreans to admit what happened. The article also reported that “Justice for the Lai Dai Han,” a private organization in which former British Foreign Secretary David Straw is involved as an “international ambassador,” is calling for an investigation by the UN Human Rights Council and an apology from the South Korean side.
He also pointed out that “South Korea has been lobbying Japan for decades to apologize over the hundreds of thousands of Korean women forced to work as sex slaves during World War II. Although the number “hundreds of thousands” and the use of the term “sex slaves” are problematic, the report highlights the attitude of South Korea, which demands an apology from Japan but turns a blind eye to its own problems.
The former Moon Jae-in administration effectively scrapped the Japan-South Korea agreement on the comfort women issue. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has rehashed the issue, referring to the comfort women at the UN Human Rights Council for three consecutive years, but has not acknowledged the widespread sexual violence by South Korean troops in Vietnam.
Regarding the coverage of this issue by major foreign media, a senior Foreign Ministry official said, “The comfort women issue raised by South Korea has been relativized, and more people may think, ‘What South Korea is saying may be frowned upon. (Takao Harakawa)
