By Park Si-soo
A group of children of South Korean prisoners of war during the Korean War (1950-53) demanded Friday that the state human rights watchdog investigate human rights abuses against them and their parents by the North Korean regime and South Korean government.
They said they and their parents had to endure “extreme hardships that ignored basic human rights” in North Korea and they experienced various discrimination in the South.
The petitioners, 55 North Korean defectors, cited their parents’ failure to escape from the North as the primary reason for discrimination here.
“My brother couldn’t join the military here due to the fact that he is the child of a prisoner of war in the North,” a petitioner said. “I managed to join. Unlike others, no rifle was given to me. Instead, I was forced to engage in mining.”
The petitioner criticized the government for not honoring prisoners of war remaining in the North.
“Those who escaped from the North are treated like national heroes, while those who failed to do so increasingly disappear from people’s memory no matter how much they sacrificed for the country during the war,” he said. “The government should treat them equally.”
Another said they had filed petitions with the Ministry of National Defense to deal with the unfair treatment, but their demands have gone unheard.
“We want, at least, my father to be honored here,” he said. A spokesman for the National Human Rights Commission said it will handle the case carefully and, if deemed necessary, work together with relevant state bodies.