Canada Grants Refugee Status to Mentally Ill S. Korean

Canada has granted refugee status to a mentally ill South Korean woman and her daughter on grounds the treatment of psychiatric patients and family members in their homeland is so shoddy it amounts to persecution, the Vancouver Sun reported last week.

According to the newspaper, Oh Mi-sook, 42, initially sought refugee status in Canada by claiming she had been persecuted in her native South Korea by a church representative who had "poisoned everyone against her" and had been arrested and held three times against her will.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board determined she was, in fact, persecuted ― not by a church representative, but by a South Korean health care system that mistreats mentally ill patients.

The Vancouver Sun said Oh suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and had been forced into mental institutions three times in South Korea without medication, quoting the conclusion of the refugee board.

Based on that mistreatment, the board granted Oh refugee status in October. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration appealed the decision. And, last month, a federal judge ruled in favor of Oh.

The case highlights the poor treatment of mentally ill patients in countries such as South Korea, according to the paper.

Documents submitted in the case say Korea illegally and forcefully hospitalizes mentally ill patients, refuses to discharge patients, forges medical records and unreasonably limits patients' correspondence. Patients also suffer frequent violence, Oh's advocates reportedly said.

The Vancouver Sun gave a detailed account of ``maltreatment'' imposed on those with mental illness in South Korea.

``South Koreans with mental illness are treated as an extreme underclass, with one hospital room sleeping 100 women with just 15 mats and no room for personal belongings,'' the newspaper reported, quoting a letter submitted to the board and written by Daniel Fisher, executive director of the National Empowerment Center in Lawrence, Mass.

Oh's 15-year-old daughter also faced difficulties as the child of a mentally ill person in South Korea. So the board granted the daughter refugee status, concluding her basic human rights were violated in South Korea.

Canadians, angered by the report, rushed to lash out at South Korea's inhumane treatment of mentally ill people.

One of the postings on the Vancouver Sun Web site said, ``South Korea needs to change its culture of repressing and badly treating mentally ill people! South Korea must enter the 21st century! If South Korea ever wants to become an "advanced country" it needs to change its culture of repressing and badly treating its mentally ill people! I know that in South Korea people will not seek treatment for mental problems or even seek counseling because of the stigma that goes with it.''