Lai Đại Hàn (; ) is a term used in the Vietnamese language to refer to a person who was born to a Vietnamese mother and a South Korean father during the Vietnam War. In Vietnamese, the word “Lai” means mixed-ethnicity and “Đại Hàn” is an obsolete term for Korea. The births of these people occurred because of South Korean involvement in the Vietnam War; approximately 350,000 South Korean soldiers were deployed to South Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. It is a politically significant term with regard to South Korea–Vietnam relations and carries a heavy social stigma due to the fact that wartime sexual violence was endemic in Vietnam when these people were conceived. An unknown number of Lai Đại Hàn births were the result of pregnancies from rape. The community has faced unequal and discriminatory treatment from the Vietnamese government, while the South Korean government has refused to acknowledge and address the rape of Vietnamese women during the conflict.
Etymology A 2010 article in the academic journal Pacific Affairs followed the phrase "Lai Daihan" with the following in parentheses: "(the) children of South Korean fathers and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War".Shipper, Apichai W. (2010). Politics of Citizenship and Transnational Gendered Migration in East and Southeast Asia. In Pacific Affairs. 83(1). Page 12. Retrieved May 23, 2017, from link.
The noun or adjective lai (chữ Nôm: 𤳆) can mean any hybrid, including an animal or tree, but in this context is pejorative, meaning "mixed-blood". "Đại Hàn" (chữ Hán: 大韓) was the standard Vietnamese term for South Korea (the Sino-Vietnamese equivalent of ), although today "Hàn Quốc" (chữ Hán: 韓國; ) is more common. Since "lai" is offensive the term "lai Đại Hàn" itself does not appear in official Vietnamese sources, except in relation for example to the name of the South Korean film "Lai Đại Hàn."Trọng Dật Dương 300 câu hỏi, 300 năm Sài Gòn TP. Hò̂ Chí Minh 1998: "Những bộ phim như "Người tình" (Pháp), "Lai Đại Hàn" (Hàn Quốc), "Miền Nam Xa Xưa" (Pháp), "Ba mùa" (Mỹ)... từng được thực hiện ở đây. Trước 1975, cả thành phố có 51 rạp chiếu bóng. Trong số này, có rạp ..."
Issue of sexual consent during conception
Prevalence of rape of Vietnamese women The number of Lai Dai Han that were born as a result of rape of South Vietnamese women by South Korean troops remains under debate.A. Kameyama, Betonamu Sensou, Saigon Souru, Toukyou [Vietnam War, Saigon, Seoul, Tokyo], Iwanami Shoten Publishing, 1972, p. 122 According to Susumu Nomura, roughly 90% of Lai Dai Han cases resulted from South Korean troops and businessmen engaged in consensual relationships with Vietnamese women, but were forced to leave after the departure of South Korean forces from South Vietnam in early 1973 or during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.jp:名越二荒之助 『日韓2000年の真実』〜ベトナムの方がのべる韓国の残虐行為〜、2002年野村進によれば、これら混血児たちの父親の90パーセントは韓国の ビジネスマン であり、ベトナム人女性との間に子供をもうけた後に「母子を置き去りにして帰国してしまった」例が多いという。『コリアン世界の旅』 講談社、1996年、173頁。
The exact number of Lai Dai Han is unknown. According to Busan Ilbo, there are at least 5,000 and as many as 30,000. According to Maeil Business, however, there are 1,000 at least. A 1998 paper which was cited in a 2015 paper said that the South Korean government put the number of Lai Dai Han at 1,500.Moon, Katharine H.S. (2015). South Korea's Demographic Changes and their Political Impact. Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings. link
There were estimated to be 800 mothers of Lai Dai Han conceived due to rape who were still alive in 2015, from a petition calling for an apology from the Korean government.Voices of Vietnam Delivers 29,000 Petition Signatures to Korean Embassy Demanding Apology from President Park. (2015). Voices of Vietnam. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from link
Reports and testimonies
An August 16, 2013 article in PRI said that South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, Kwon Ki-hyeon, stated that "Such intentional, organized and systemized civilian massacres by the Korean army are impossible. If such an incident did exist, it would have been exposed and made public a long time ago. The Republic of Korea fought in Vietnam to stop the Communization of a free South Vietnam. Since our army executed our mission under strict rules, there was no sexual exploitation of Vietnamese women." The article also noted that "Historians agree that Korean troops fathered a large number of mixed Korean-Vietnamese children called Lai Dai Han. But it remains unclear the extent to which this was battlefield rape versus prostitution."Cain, Geoffrey. (2013). Battle of the dueling war crimes. PRI. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from link
An April 25, 2015 article in The Hankyoreh stated that Kim Nak-yeong, who was a staff sergeant at Bình Khê in Bình Định Province, South Vietnam from May 1971 to June 1972 said, "Some of the units didn't cause any problems because they were strictly instructed not to do harm to civilians. However, I heard a lot of talk about brutal sexual assaults taking place throughout the operation zones, and my understanding is that there's a definite possibility it was true." The article also reported quotes from the interviews of ten elderly Vietnamese women who said to be victims of sexual assaults perpetrated by the South Korean military during the Vietnam War in Bình Định Province. One stated that, "Four people took turns doing it to me one at a time", and another was quoted as saying, "They'd put one person at a time in the trench, keep me there all day and night and just rape me again and again".
An October 30, 2016, article in The Hankyoreh said that Jang Ui-seong, head of the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Korea (VVAK), was representing 831 plaintiffs in a defamation lawsuit against for her 2014 interview in the Japanese newspaper Shūkan Bunshun, 2016 interview in The Hankyoreh and statements she made in a video. According to the article, the VVAK denied Ku's research of the South Korean military's conduct during the Vietnam War by saying that "all" of it had been "falsehoods and forgeries". The VVAK continued by saying its veterans have said that "all" of the victims were "Viet Cong disguised as civilians" and that "no sexual violence occurred". Ku's research is backed by interviews of Vietnamese people, "documentation from several investigations by the Vietnamese government", 60 Vietnam War victim memorials in Vietnam, and three Vietnam War "memorials of hatred to South Korean troops". The article said that Ku had as evidence "33 different official documents", several of which were from the "US military command in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970".Ahn, Young-choon. (2016). [News analysis] South Korea coming to confront Vietnam War civilian massacres. The Hankyoreh. Retrieved November 18, 2016, from link
Impact on Korean society Stephen Epstein, Director of the Asian Studies Programme at the Victoria University of Wellington, said that "Korea's legacy in Vietnam encompasses feelings of guilt, especially in a very concrete manifestation: thousands of children of mixed Korean-Vietnamese descent, the Lai Dai Han, a significant proportion of whom were abandoned by their fathers."The Bride(s) From Hanoi: South Korean Popular Culture, Vietnam and "Asia" in the New Millennium. The University of Sydney. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from link
A 25 April 2015 article in The Hankyoreh said that Yoon Mi-hyang, president of The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, said the following while addressing the elderly Vietnamese women she had interviewed who said to have been sexually assaulted by the South Korean military during the Vietnam War, "I can't think of anything I can say to all of you. We were innocent victims too, but hearing now that Vietnamese women were victimized by us Koreans, we feel mortified and sorry as Koreans. That is why we intend to combine our strength and raise the Butterfly Fund to provide some small help to the victims." The Butterfly Fund was started on March 8, 2012, to help people who experience sexual violence during times of war. A 2015 article in The Hankyoreh said, "Now it's time for Seoul to sit down with Vietnamese authorities to find out the truth not only about the civilian massacres that took place during the Vietnam War, but also about the extent of military authorities' involvement in operating and managing "welfare stations" for their troops - and to take appropriate follow-up action."
Discrimination within Vietnam After the war, the mothers of Lai Dai Han were accused of being collaborators with enemy countries, and were deprived of property, ideologically educated, and imprisoned.
The Lai Dai Han community has been facing social exclusion due to their "mixed ethnicity". It has been reported that many cannot read or write, with most not having access to basic health and education services. In addition to living with "stigma, shame and prejudice", the community also faces acute poverty as of 2020.
A March 27, 2020, article in BBC News details some testimonies of the women of the Lai Dai Han community, who reported that their children "have faced a lifetime of abuse and discrimination, mocked for being Lai Dai Han".
Legacy
Memorials An April 27, 2016, article in Tuổi Trẻ said that artists Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung would show their Vietnam Pieta statue on May 4, 2016, to the Korean-Vietnamese Peace Foundation. This Vietnam Pieta statue would be used as a model for two statues: one statue that would go in Vietnam and one statue that would go in South Korea. The Vietnam Pieta statue depicted a mother holding a child, and the statue was reminiscent of the Pietà statue from the fifteenth century. The two artists said that the Vietnam Pieta statue was intended to convey a "message of apology and repentance of the South Korean people" to the Vietnamese people for the lives of the Vietnamese people that were lost in "massacres" by the South Korean military with particular focus on the children who were massacred by the South Korean military.'Vietnam Pieta' statue an apology from S. Korea. (2016). Tuoi Tre News. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from link
A January 16, 2016, article in The Hankyoreh said that the Kim Seo-gyeong and Kim Woon-seong, the two artists who made the Vietnam Pieta statue, did an interview on January 12, 2016. In that interview, the two artists said that "The South Korean government must demand and it must receive an exact apology from the Japanese government about the issue of the comfort women. Likewise, it must make an exact apology for the massacre of civilians during the Vietnam War. The government isn't fulfilling its role on either of these things right now".Nam, Jong-young. (2016). "Vietnam Pieta" statues to memorialize civilian victims killed by ROK in Vietnam War. The Hankyoreh. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from link
An October 12, 2016 news article reported that the Danang Museum received the "Pieta Vietnam" statue on October 11, 2016, along with 51 other items. These included thirty photographs about a South Korean movement called "An apology to Vietnam", books about the Vietnam War, documentary videos about the Vietnam War, and six pictures that memorialized people who were massacred by South Korean military forces during the Vietnam War.Historical items received from Korea. (2016). Vietnam Colors.net. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from link
In June 2018 the Mother and Child by British artist Rebecca Hawkins was unveiled in Church House, Westminster and is sited in St James's Square to stand and speak for the women and their children of the Lai Dai Han, and all victims of sexual violence in conflict around the world. The sculpture was commissioned by the campaign, Justice for Lai Dai Han.
Calls for apologies from South Korea