A Victim’s Response to President Lee Dae Myung's Apology
I have just learned of this post by the president of South Korea and am deeply hurt and concerned. Let me expound on my disgust and disappointment:
1. First and foremost there is no acknowledgement of the deaths, murders, and suicides of the Korean people who remain unaccounted for and nameless in this statement. Without this acknowledgement of their deaths, the apology is insincere and woefully inadequate to the loss of lives of these victims. This is unforgivable as we know about the murder of 16 month old Jung In who suffered over 800 recorded counts of abuse before her death in October 2020. We know about the murder suicide of the 4 Korean children killed by an American banker, Steven Sueppel in 2008. We know of the murder of Hyun Su, who was just 3 years old in 2013. In the face of such crimes, an apology is dismissive and inappropriate. I continue to demand justice and accountability for their deaths.
2. To fully acknowledge the crimes identified as fraud, falsifying official documents, taking children away from their parents and families through coercion, deception, and force for the purpose of exploitation is the very definition of human trafficking and therefore should be identified as the crime it is. And as a crime, the only appropriate action is to stop it and prevent it. There should be no allowance for buying and selling people to be made a legal process now or in the future. Continuing such practices under any protection of a convention nullifies whatever apologies and promises made to victims of this crime. I fully do not accept nor do I have trust or faith in the South Korean government given its chosen course of action. I do not feel acknowledged, reassured, or valued as a Korean, or as a human being.
3. The Korean government had stated back in 2023 that it would ratify the Hague Adoption Convention and has simply followed through in spite of the outcomes from the investigations, the murders, and deaths of Korean people. It is a statement to industry leaders that South Korea will maintain a child supply market and keep doing business, at this time under the protection of a convention specifically designed to secure the future of the industry ensuring it will produce more profits at the cost of countless more victims. This is being presented as a better solution, but do not be fooled again by such blatant propaganda. The industry has become so arrogant and bold seeing millions of people praising, celebrating, and endorsing it while it continues to take human lives. That's the power of propaganda. Children are being killed in broad daylight and millions of people defend and praise the industry responsible for their deaths.
I am sickened by the lack of humanity that has been overrun by greed. There is no need for South Korea to continue engaging in this industry it helped establish. Instead, as a global cultural and economic power at this time, a stronger position would be to do the right thing and be an example of putting human lives before profits. Child trafficking will never be a family planning solution. It is wrong and needs to stop. Killing children will never be in their best interest. This is wrong and needs to stop. The only right response is to shut it down. Put an end to this legacy of death and human destruction, of genocides, slavery, war crimes , and mass murder.
There is enough evidence to say this child supply market should not continue. As a victim of this industry I have lived through being taken, commodified, abused, and suffered the tremendous pain of the loss of three other victims with whom I grew up. I wish my voice carried far enough to reach those in power who could put a stop to all this. My pain, my life should matter, but clearly it doesn't. Not in this world, not to this president. His statement proves how expendable I am to a multibillion dollar industry he's still going to do business with at my expense. How shameful. I am Korean. I am a human being. But to him I'm just a commodity. That's the message he's sending to all victims of this industry, past, present, and future. Today, I am ashamed to be a Korean.