The sexual abuse of disabled residents that shocked South Korea

The sexual abuse of disabled residents that shocked South Korea

"I was hurting inside, so I came to tell my story."

Those were Seo Mi-hyeon’s first words to police.

Seo, who has an intellectual disability, finds it difficult to make long sentences and can only communicate in short words and gestures. Even so, the memories she had of the abuse done to her were vivid.

She was one of three residents at a state-run care home in South Korea who were sexually assaulted by the home’s director, in a case that has stunned the country and prompted serious questions about state care for disabled people.

Earlier this month, a court in Seoul sentenced the director — identified only by his surname Kim — to 15 years in prison. Kim is appealing the conviction.

The court heard that some residents were made to call the director “dad”, something prosecutors said showed the unequal relationship between Kim and the people under his care.

The ruling came almost two years after Seo, who is in her 40s, first told her mother about the abuse.

We have changed Seo’s name and the name of another victim in this story to protect their identities.

Seo first moved into Saekdongwon, a care home for people with intellectual disabilities, in 2016.

The institute, in the city of Incheon, is fully funded by the state and still houses about 33 residents, although it has been asked to shut down because of this case.

According to Seo, the abuse started soon after she arrived, with Kim coming to her at night or in the early morning hours to rape her.

Speaking through her lawyer Ko Eun-young, Seo said there was no adult at the facility she could tell about the abuse, and added that she believed other staff members would not help her. The care home has not responded to this claim.

That was her life for nearly 10 years, until the case came to light in February 2025, when Seo suffered a head injury.

She said it happened during one of the times Kim tried to sexually assault her. She blocked him with her hands, and he threw a glass at her.

Her lawyer told the court that the care home took Seo to hospital and informed her mother about the incident only after the wound on her head had been stitched.

According to Seo’s lawyer, Seo’s mother asked to see CCTV footage to find out how her daughter had been injured, but the facility refused, saying it was not authorised to release it.

As a result, her mother brought her home and decided to remove her from the facility. Only after Seo was told she would not have to return did she disclose the sexual abuse to her mother, who then reported it to police.

“I thought it was safe to speak because I was told I didn’t have to go back to Saekdongwon,” Seo told the BBC through her lawyer.

When asked how she had managed alone for so many years, she said: “I just endured it.”

Police then widened their investigation into Seo’s account to include other residents.

They found at least two other alleged victims, including Lee Mi-Na, who said she was also raped by Kim.

Earlier this month, a judge found all three victims’ testimony credible.

Kim was sentenced to 15 years in prison for raping Lee and Seo, five years less than the sentence prosecutors had originally sought. He has denied all allegations and has appealed the ruling.

For the third victim, Kim was found guilty of a lesser sexual violence charge, with the judge saying the rape charge was dropped because they could not find conclusive evidence that “force or threats [were used] that rendered the victim unable to resist”.

A joint response committee made up of disability rights groups and other civic organisations criticised the ruling, saying a victim’s ability to resist an assault should not affect the verdict they receive.

The committee also criticised the investigation, saying it failed to identify more possible victims.

In November last year, after the first abuse allegations, local authorities in Ganghwa County commissioned a team from Woosuk University to carry out a detailed assessment of Saekdongwon’s residents.

The report, which was submitted to the court as evidence, found signs that many more residents — at least 10 — may have been sexually assaulted by Kim.

But during the trial, the court did not address that finding.

According to local media reports, police struggled to establish details of the alleged abuse when interviewing residents because most had severe disabilities and found communication difficult. Some residents reportedly gave answers unrelated to the questions or did not respond at all.

Kim has not responded to allegations that he may have abused more residents.

Jeon Ji-su, the professor who led the Woosuk research team, told the BBC that investigators had accepted “only the accounts of people who could describe the abuse in complete sentences”.

But activists said this reliance on verbal testimony meant police failed to recognise residents with greater communication difficulties as victims.

“If victims express their experiences differently from the way we expect, shouldn’t the state make a greater effort to hear their voices?” said Baek In-seong of Hansahoe, a counselling centre for survivors of sexual violence with disabilities.

Police said that “while there may have been shortcomings in individual instances, these should not be taken as representative of the investigation as a whole”.

Rights groups have also criticised others who sought leniency for Kim.

Before the verdict, a total of 13 petitions asking for leniency were said to have been submitted to the court. One of them, from a social welfare organisation, asked the court to consider the defendant’s “contribution to the welfare sector”.

The welfare advocacy group Gyeol condemned the organisations behind the petitions, saying: “Past service in the welfare sector does not exempt anyone from accountability.”

The judge’s ruling on Kim’s conviction said his offence was “particularly reprehensible” because “despite his professional duty to protect and support [the victims’] rights and interests and prevent abuse, he exploited the imbalance of power” with his victims to “gratify his own sexual desires”.

The case has shocked many in South Korea and raised questions about why the abuse was not stopped in the first place. Even more shocking is that it happened despite a move in 2011 to strengthen laws protecting disabled people from sexual assault.

That was the year the fictional film Dogani, based on a true story of sexual abuse at a school for deaf children, was released. Amid intense public scrutiny and protests, the school was shut and tougher laws were introduced as a result.

These included more specific categories of sexual offences against disabled people, harsher penalties for offences committed by facility directors and employees, and the removal of the statute of limitations for some rape offences involving disabled victims.

But in Saekdongwon’s case, the abuse continued despite regular inspections by Ganghwa County, the local authority responsible for overseeing the facility.

A county official told the BBC that such inspections focused mainly on paperwork, and that residents were interviewed only when specific issues came up.

The official said there had also been an external monitoring team, but it had received no reports from staff, and expressed regret that the authorities had not examined the situation more closely.

Jo Ha, a representative from the national council of a counselling centre who has supported some Saekdongwon victims, said some families she had spoken to suspected abuse but felt unable to raise concerns.

Leaving a facility would mean the family must take on all care responsibilities, since finding alternative placements is difficult.

One survey carried out through a national association of parents of people living in residential facilities for disabled people found that around six in 10 people who secured a place in such a facility had waited at least three years, highlighting how hard it is to access suitable care.

Professor Kim Yoon-tae, head of Woosuk University’s Institute of Cognitive Science, said such facilities exercise extensive control over residents’ lives, from what they eat and where they sleep to their access to healthcare and even whether they are allowed to go outside.

And while Saekdongwon is “a landmark case” because of the scale and length of the abuse, it is not an isolated one, Jo added.

In 2023, an appeals court upheld an eight-year prison sentence for a worker who raped or sexually assaulted two women with intellectual disabilities at a facility in Yeongcheon the previous year.

In another case in Anseong, a care home worker was recently sentenced to six years in prison for repeatedly raping a female resident with a disability in 2022.

“The violence women with disabilities experience is not an individual problem,” Jo said. “It is structural violence, shaped by overlapping layers of gender, disability, institutionalisation, poverty and social isolation.”

Since the case emerged, South Korea’s prime minister has ordered the creation of a cross-government response team, calling the incident “a grave matter that calls into question the very reason for the state’s existence”.

In April, the government said it had inspected 1,507 residential facilities for disabled people nationwide and identified 33 suspected abuse cases. Investigations have so far been opened into eight of them.

The government also said it would strengthen targeted inspections based on risk factors, as well as joint inspections involving local authorities, police and disability rights advocacy agencies.

Ganghwa County has ordered Saekdongwon to close, and the local government has revoked the licence of the foundation that ran it.

However, the closure has been delayed until the remaining residents are relocated and arrangements for independent living are completed.

The local government said it will prepare individual independent-living support plans for all 33 Saekdongwon residents. That process is still ongoing.

Saekdongwon has filed an administrative lawsuit challenging the revocation of its licence. It has not yet commented on Kim’s conviction.

Asked what had changed most since leaving Saekdongwon, Seo said: “I just feel at peace. I’m happy every day.”

She also said the best thing was being able to eat and sleep whenever she wanted.

What she wanted most now was “to cut ties with the director completely and never have anything to do with him again”.

But, Seo added, people with disabilities still need a place where they can feel safe.

“I hope there can be a facility without sexual violence, where disabled people like us can live in peace.”