Known by its Korean names mundung byeong and na byeong, Hansen's Disease is a disease that is almost forgotten. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced in the mid-eighties that Korea had succeeded in eradicating it, and only around 500 people suffer from active cases. However, as many as 16,000 have had histories with the disease, and live in pain and grief. The disease has been healed, but social prejudice and disregard has kept people unable to free themselves of the yoke of this "punishment from Heaven."
The results of a recent survey of first generation Hansen's Disease patients are shocking. Performed by Hanbit Welfare Association, an organization that seeks to defend the rights of people who suffer from the disease, indicates that most of the people living in the country's 88 settlements lack basic living facilities such as structures with building permits, running water, and sewage. Most first generation patients have been raising pigs and chicken, but their average monthly incomes have actually shrunken to only W250,000. Though already living in poor conditions, 7 out of 10 people with the disease are living under the chains of prejudice, either unable to muster the courage to meet whatever relatives they may have or having lost all contact.
The conditions situation for people who have left protective facilities such as settlements or the hospital at Sorok Island are even more miserable. They account for more than 9,000 of the people who have had Hansen's Disease, but most have been abandoned by their families or cannot find work just because they once suffered from it, and are left to beg for a living. Meanwhile, even if they have no further connections, those who have children do not qualify for government "basic living guarantee." They are being neglected, living in a dimension where they are not seen, unable to even be given recognition as handicapped persons even when they suffer from a lack of hand and facial functions.
The Japanese colonial government engaged in a barbaric policy of discrimination against people with Hansen's, segregating them and forcing men about to be married to have vasectomies. After Liberation, Hansen's patients working on islands near Sorok Island were killed after being attacked by locals or removed by the country's military regimes. Medicine to heal the disease has been developed and the risk of communication has all but disappeared, but the prejudice and discrimination continues. Korean society should consider that a shame and take the needed action to correct the situation.
People with the disease and civil rights groups are calling on the government to have policy be centered on treatment and give compensation for human rights violations either perpetrated by the government or done with its backing. That is an exceedingly natural thing to ask for. We will be watching the National Human Rights Commission's inquiry and related legislative developments at the National Assembly.
The Hankyoreh, 12 February 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Let's End Suffering From Hansen's Disease |
