Rape, among other acts of wartime sexual violence, was frequently committed against female Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. It was an aspect of the various human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States and South Korea, as well as by local Vietnamese combatants. According to American political scientist Elisabeth Jean Wood, the sexual violation of women by American military personnel was tolerated by their commanders. American professor Gina Marie Weaver stated that not only were documented crimes against Vietnamese women by American soldiers ignored during the international legal discourse that occurred immediately after the conflict, but modern feminists and other anti-war rape campaigners, as well as historians, have continued to dismiss them.
Some American veterans believe that sexual violence against Vietnamese women was motivated by "racism, sexism, or a combination of both" as a result of the strong social reform movements that were roiling the United States in the early 1970s. According to one source, only 25 cases of rape from the United States Army and 16 cases of rape from the United States Marine Corps resulted in court-martial convictions involving Vietnamese victims between 1965 and 1973.
The issue of pregnancies resulting from rapes has had a significant impact on South Korea–Vietnam relations: these people, conceived through the rape of Vietnamese women by South Korean soldiers, continue to be subjected to discriminatory treatment by the Vietnamese government, while their presence in South Korea is unacknowledged by the South Korean government. In Vietnam, the term "Lai Đại Hàn" () refers to a person beget by a Vietnamese mother and a South Korean father during the Vietnam War. The extent of these relationships' sexual consent is still debated;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 one Japanese study determined that over half of Lai Đại Hàn births had resulted from rape.A. Kameyama, Betonamu Sensou, Saigon Souru, Toukyou [Vietnam War, Saigon, Seoul, Tokyo], Iwanami Shoten Publishing, 1972, p. 122
By American personnel During the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers stationed in South Vietnam engaged in various sexual interactions, including consensual sex, prostitution, and rape. Mixing consenting sexual activity and rape may also be viewed as the outcome of indifference toward a nation at war. According to Gregory A. Daddis, certain U.S. Army drill instructors assured recruits that they could rape Vietnamese women, which Daddis partially attributed to "Orientalist" beliefs that portrayed Asian women as "creatures of a male power fantasy." Men's adventure magazines contributed to a culture that accepted sexual aggressiveness and violence towards Vietnamese women.
According to Gina Marie Weaver, the primary sources are rich in accounts of violence, including testimony provided in open hearings held during the war, court cases, military investigations, oral reports gathered for publishing both during and long after the war, and literary works, such as poems, novels, and memoirs. Sexual mistreatment of the Vietnamese women during the Vietnam war has been witnessed by numerous U.S. veterans and other eyewitnesses.
According to Kerry Crawford, rape of Vietnamese women was a "normal operating procedure", and brothels were built inside military installations to maintain morale and discipline. Approximately 100 recruits who were interviewed in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, had little to say about the war's greater difficulties since "the men’s personal concerns were mostly sexual." Many U.S. servicemen sought local women in hopes of filling the void created by the frustrating war in Vietnam. According to Daddis, military leaders were likely aware of this, as one deployed officer noted that his in-processing briefings covered topics ranging "from the current Viet Cong infrastructure to the common venereal diseases in Vietnam." A U.S. soldier in Vietnam reportedly said:
During the Winter Soldier Investigation, sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), some of the testimonies of Vietnam veterans included the rape and murder of Vietnamese women, with some being tortured and sexually mutilated. According to Mark Baker, who interviewed Vietnam veterans for his book, one became a "double veteran" by "having sex with a woman and then killing her." One marine recalled an incident where a Vietnamese girl was gang-raped by members of his unit, with the final perpetrator shooting the victim in the head. In a similar incident, a soldier observed that the female victim "freely submitted" to rape to avoid death. At a hospital in Da Nang, a nurse was killed after being raped by seven marines.
In his controversial study The Perfect War: The War We Couldn't Lose and How We Did, James William Gibson contends that raping women was a means by which some soldiers could demonstrate their power over Vietnamese women. According to Gibson, U.S. soldiers would rape Vietnamese girls, then kill them in horrific ways, including allegedly making their "stomachs explode" by sticking "hand flares" inside their vaginas.
Prosecutions and notable cases According to one source, only 25 cases of rape committed by army soldiers and 16 by marines involving Vietnamese victims from 1965 to 1973 resulted in court-martial convictions. Daddis argues that the low number of complaints and convictions reported by the UCMJ, the only service that keeps track of its war crimes cases, demonstrates the faults in the UCMJ system.
The incident on Hill 192 refers to the kidnapping, gang rape, and murder of Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman by an American squad during the Vietnam War on 19 November 1966. The woman was raped by the soldiers, after which she was stabbed and shot in the head. All soldiers involved faced court sentences and were also dishonorably discharged from the Army. The Mỹ Lai massacre is another infamous incident where almost 20 Vietnamese women and girls, some as young as 13, were raped by the U.S. troops.
In August 1967, a 13-year-old Vietnamese girl was raped by an American MI interrogator of the 196th Infantry Brigade while interrogating her as a suspected VC member. A general court martial tried the soldier, and he was given a dishonorable discharge and 20 years in prison with hard labor. However, his sentence was reduced to one year upon appeal. In total, he was incarcerated for only seven months and 16 days.
According to Daddis, the UCMJ system discriminated against Vietnamese rights in favor of American rights. The court system did not protect local women or listen to their stories. For example, military officials detained a 20-year-old Vietnamese woman who later alleged that 10 American soldiers raped her while she was jailed. The woman could only identify two of her rapists when questioned by investigators. Later, she stated that "she was not sure," and the case was swiftly dismissed due to a lack of sufficient evidence to support her assertions.
By South Korean personnel Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers served while fighting in the Vietnam War, with each typically serving a one-year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, with all being withdrawn by 1973. Rapes of Vietnamese women by South Korean military personnel occurred throughout the conflict, some of which resulted in forced pregnancies. According to Kim Nak-yeong, who was a staff sergeant at Bình Khê in Bình Định Province, South Vietnam, from May 1971 to June 1972, "Some of the units didn't cause any problems because they were strictly instructed not to harm 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 same article from The Hankyoreh in April 2015 also reported quotes from the interviews of ten elderly Vietnamese women who said they were victims of sexual assaults perpetrated by the South Korean military during the Vietnam War in Bình Định Province. One stated, "Four people took turns doing it to me one at a time." 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".
In October 2016, it was reported that the head of the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Korea was representing 831 plaintiffs in a defamation lawsuit against for her 2014 interview in the Japanese newspaper Shūkan Bunshun and 2016 interview in The Hankyoreh, as well as her statements in a video. They said that Ku's statements of about the actions of the South Korean military during the Vietnam War were all "falsehoods and forgeries", that the victims were just "Viet Cong disguised as civilians", and that "no sexual violence occurred".Ahn, Young-choon. (2016). [News analysis] South Korea coming to confront Vietnam War civilian massacres. The Hankyoreh. Retrieved 18 November 2016, from link
Lai Đại Hàn
In Vietnamese, "Lai Dai Han" is a derogatory epithet that means "mixed blood." The Vietnamese-Korean children contend their lives have been wrecked by shame in a culture that has not recognized them or their mothers' sexual abuse. Many are illiterate as a result of being denied an education, and they have limited access to healthcare and social services. 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
The Lai Dai Han community continues to face 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 or education services. In addition to living with "stigma, shame and prejudice", the community also faces acute poverty as of 2020. A 27 March 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". One rape victim's father was beaten to death by Vietnamese government personnel shortly after the war ended. Both the Korean and Vietnamese governments have sidelined or ignored the issue, and requests by the BBC to make a documentary were turned down by the Vietnamese government.