Kim Hyeong Yul, a leader in the campaign for the rights of the children of victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, has died at the young age of 35. It was in 2002 that he first went public with the fact he, too, was the child of an atomic bomb victim. He campaigned on behalf of other second-generation victims and his sudden death speaks of the reality faced by the bomb victims and their children who suffer in this land.
The Korean and Japanese governments have ignored the atomic bomb victims for the more than 60 years since they were dropped over Japan. In many cases the "curse" has been handed down to their children, and the curse is hard to endure. Few have taken an interest in their suffering. Some of the victims have received assistance in their legal fight against the Japanese government, but they received no help from the Korean government.
It would be hard to describe in words the pain of the victims' children. They face all sorts of diseases that assumed to be hereditary, and yet they have had to hide their identities for fear of social prejudices. There is no research or study of how the bombings have influenced the children, and there is not even proper understanding of how they are suffering.
Last February the National Human Rights Commission called on the government to perform a study on the status of victims and their children and to come up with plans to help them, but the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which would be primarily responsible for that, has yet to do anything. Tired of waiting, victims are joining with Democratic Labor Party (DLP) Assemblyman Jo Seoung Soo to submit to the National Assembly a "special law" on atomic bomb victims.
Being ignored by your country is worse than the grief of losing it. The government must make sure that the victims and their children stop dying without ever having their suffering addressed. That is something the government should be doing in the first place and it would be how to atone for those who have died already.
The Hankyoreh, 30 May 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Stop Ignoring Atomic Bomb Victims |
