#280: The Horrific Korean Boarding School That Abused Disabled Students - Real Life Story Of The Movie “Silenced”

26:01and then he rolled up his sleeves and there was bruising all up and down his arms. He glanced around because, you know, in South Korea, I don't know if you guys can picture the classrooms, but there's these giant windows. It's not like America where it's like concrete walls and then a door with a window. There is like giant windows into the hallway. If you watch a K-drama of high school, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's making sure that there's no teacher walking by, no administrators, and he keeps his hands as close to his body as he can. And in the smallest motions possible, he's quickly signing.

26:31It's almost like he's hiding. I'm not the only one. Mr. J watched as this student, this literal child, was signing as fast as he could, just listing off the most horrific abuse that Mr. J had ever heard of. His eyes were watering, but he can't even look away. He had to listen to every single thing that this student had to say. And the student continued, I'm not the only one with the bruises. The teachers always beat us, and it doesn't matter what they do, they'll beat us. My friend wasn't the only one that was touched by teachers either. There's a lot more. the others. Why didn't you guys ask for help?

27:04Why didn't anyone say anything? We tried. Every time we asked teachers for help, we just got sent away or punished even more. If any of us tried telling people outside the school, they would beat us or they would try and touch us. How did you find that that your friend was? She was walking weird and I asked her if she was sick, but she told me that she was R-worded. A man with glasses R-worded her and I was so surprised. Mr. J got up and went to grab the friend that this kid was referring to and let's call her yujin yujin was only 10 years old and because both of her parents lived with mental disabilities her parents thought that the best thing that they could ever do for their kid was to send her to this boarding school these are not parents that didn't want her these are not parents that are like i'm so busy with work i don't want to spend the weekends with you they genuinely thought if when they were growing up with their disabilities if there had been such a thing for students with disabilities they felt like they would have a chance at a normal life.

27:58So this was Yujin's chance. She would be surrounded by students like her. She would have a community, a place to fit in. And that makes this situation even more infuriating. To her parents, this school was like a beacon of hope. And now she's shaking in her chair as this new teacher is signing to her. Did he? And she told him, yes, I'm sure that he did. He made me bend down and he pulled my pants down. and afterwards he cleaned everything up with paper towels and he gave me a cup of coke to drink. The man with the glasses? Which one? And right at that time, she pointed at the perpetrator. It wasn't Mr.

28:40J's colleague. It wasn't a teacher. It was none other than the vice principal. One of the top dogs in the entire boarding school and Mr. J could feel his chest moving up and down rapidly. Like he had to be smart about this. He can't just confront the guy. If he is the vice principal, he has more authority than Teacher Jay. He could easily cover it up or shut him up. Teacher Jay stormed into the nurse's office, told her everything. Like, did you know about this? We need to get some evidence, like some medical evidence on these students if they're being abused like this. She boards here. Eugene lives here.

29:11So obviously she would have come here if she felt ill and she was very ill because she couldn't even walk properly to the point where her friends noticed. And Teacher Jay is like holding back his tears. This is a 10-year-old we're talking about. a 10-year-old with disabilities that was so excited to be at this school because for the first time in her life, she felt like there was hope. And he's on the verge of breaking down. And this is the terrifying part. The nurse's face is stone cold. I'll look into it. What? What do you mean you'll look into it? I said, I'll look into it, teacher Jay. And that was that.

29:48The tone, the dismissal. I mean, honestly, it felt like the nurse was dismissing all concerns and probably knew what was going on. Mr. J thought, fine, if she's not going to help me, I'm going to march down here with all the other teachers until she finally listens. When he told a few of the other teachers on his floor, they all avoided eye contact and they were glancing at the walls. I mean, how are you guys okay with this? Did you not hear me? Do I need to repeat myself? One of them sheepishly responded, Yeah, but what can we do about it, right? Mr. J feels like he's losing his freaking mind.

30:25Why is he the only one shocked at what's going on? Why does it feel like everyone is gaslighting him into believing that this happens at every school? It all goes back to the Inwa Mafia. That's what everyone calls it. So let me give you the rundown on the Inwa boarding school. Even though this is a state government funded program, it was run like straight up like a mafia. That's what the press would later dub the administrators of this school, the Inwa Mafia. At the top of the food chain is the Inwa family. One family runs the entire school. The dad of the family is the chairman. The wife, the mom of the family, is the co-chairman.

31:01The first son is the principal. The second son is the vice principal. The third son is the art teacher that likes to draw nude photos. Their niece is the director of student affairs. Their brother-in-law is this. everyone at the top that's not a regular shmegular teacher was part of the family. That's why they feel like they can do whatever and nobody can even say a thing. Not a thing. The family ran the school. There was no checks and balances because sure, if the head of administration does something wrong, you can report it to the principal. But would you still report it if you knew they were brothers?

31:31Probably not. Okay, but what if the teachers got together to protest what's going on? Korea itself has a hierarchical society, has a hierarchy, and like just embedded into society. And it's very different from the US where technically you have a hierarchy. You're like, okay, there's a manager, there's an assistant manager, there's the employee. It's nearly impossible to speak out against your boss. So what happens is a lot of Korean companies don't like to hire people that disrupt business. Even if you're doing the right thing, if it's disrupting business, you're not a good employee. Bringing up allegations of abuse has often been considered making waves, which is crazy.

32:13Okay, I'm not saying this is proper or right. I'm giving you context. This is crazy, okay? It's considered making waves. And if you get fired, you'd be blacklisted from the industry. Your next employer won't care that you are sticking up for vulnerable students who are being abused. They will see you as someone who causes problems. And remember how I said teaching is a pretty prestigious career in Korea? Because of that, a lot of people want to become a teacher, which means there's not enough open positions. A lot of teachers at Inwa ended up there because they had no other option. And the family knew that.

32:44They exploited that. They would often force teachers to pay for their spot. This is so legal. Essentially, if you don't want me to fire you and replace you with someone else next semester, give me 10 % of your paycheck back. The teachers were so terrified of the Inwa family, they would bring them gifts every week. This is so bizarre. But every week, they were expected to bring the family gifts. And if they didn't, their names would be written on the whiteboard in the office room. Kind of like, hey, we know you didn't gift us anything this week. And also, we're going to publicly shame you. Even during 추석, which is like Thanksgiving, typically Koreans might bow to the floor to show respect.

33:20This is the ultimate bow. So you know how Koreans, 인사, they say hello and they go, 안녕하세요, right? The ultimate bow that I've only done a few times in my life, primarily to family, like my aunts, uncles, my parents, you get on your knees, your hands touch the ground, and your forehead touches the floor. This is the ultimate sign of gratitude, respect. Like you do this for people who have given their lives to raise you. You do this maybe for if you're religious, right? For people that have genuinely saved you, made you who you are. You don't do this for an employer. The teachers were expected to bow to the family during special holidays.

33:56Okay, I get it. There's a hierarchy in Korea, but this is bizarre. Like if you told any Korean that, they'd be like, are you out of your mind? Like, have you lost your marbles? What are you talking about? Most of the teachers at Inwa, they had their own families. They had their own loved ones with medical bills. They had their own futures to look out for. Most of them, I will give it to most of the teachers, had no idea what was going on. Remember, a good portion of them don't speak sign language. The teachers don't live on campus. They go home at the end of the day. The ones that lived on campus with the kids, they were mainly part of the administration.

34:27Side note, the family does have their own home, the Inwa family, but I think they took turns and they would have a few different teachers that would stay during the weekends and the nights, but just keep that in mind. But for the teachers that did know and did nothing, I have no words. And so much of the abuse seemed like it was on a scheduled basis, especially on the weekends when most of the teachers were gone. The vice principal would come into the dorm rooms. He would play music really loudly on speakers and assault the students. One victim said, he forcefully kissed me so I got angry and I kicked him and I told him to get off so he he slapped me and it wasn't just him it seemed like everyone was in on it the principal the older brother he was in on it he was actually called the pervert by the students his favorite thing was to make us watch adult films with him I don't know if every single family member a part of the Inwa family participated in the abuse or if it was just the sons but I can't imagine that the parents don't know.

35:26I can't imagine that the co-chairman, the wife didn't know. I feel like they knew. Even the nurses were in on it. So there was another nurse at the school who helped forge medical records of the students when the administrators, the predators, needed it. This is wild. So a predator assaulted a student and then dragged her to get a nurse checkup to prove that she had no recent sexual activity. Like what an odd thing to do, right? It's even more suspicious than not doing anything at all. But he dragged her there and demanded a physical checkup on her private parts. And I don't know what kind of school nurse does these types of checkups, but the parents were not alerted.

36:00They did not give parental approval. The nurse did the quote exam and stated that there was a tear in the hymen. Now, side note, that's not really proof that she was R-worded because hymens can tear or break from even riding a bike. But the nurse initially wrote in a report that there was a tear. Now, that doesn't prove if she did or didn't have sexual encounters. That's what the nurse wrote. And then mysteriously, the document was updated by the nurse. The administrators clearly didn't like this. The did or didn't lingo, it's too confusing. Did it or did it not happen? The nurse changed it to read, in my professional opinion, I'm 100 % certain that no sexual act was committed.

36:38Technically, you can't tell as a medical professional. So we could bring in the argument that the nurse was bribed or threatened into adding that, but my personal speculative opinion is that he full well knew what he was doing. A teacher brings in a young student in for a vaginal examination and the parents and guardians are not present and the teacher is allegedly unhappy with the inconclusiveness of the exam. You're telling me you don't know? It's really not hard to put the pieces together. Another thing that makes this extra horrendous is remember how it's a state-funded school? It's funded by the government.

37:12They get paid for the number of students who attend. The more students there, the more money the family makes. More students to abuse and more money. Not only were the Inwa family abusers just disgusting, they were really greedy. Technically, the school is a charity and they constantly accepted donations from the public. People wanted to donate clothes, art supplies, books, whatever it may be. And what the school does reminds me of, you know, those really shady charity stories that come out once in a while about corrupt charities where you have all the charity organizers pocketing the money and just marketing to you.

37:46basically. They show you a picture of this new state-of-the-art facility for sheltered dogs and then you realize it's fake. That 90 % of the dogs that they rescue are kept in horrendous conditions that you will never see. This is like a set for ads, they say. It's like that at Inwa. The teachers would take all the donated shirts, do photo shoots with the students, rip it off of them, and sell these used shirts for cash. Like they would make pennies on the dollar. They weren't even selling it for much. It's not like people are donating Dior shirts. People are donating just worn out shirts. That's how greedy they were.

38:21Every single penny, they refused to give it to the people that they're making money from. Like it couldn't even be a shirt. They would even sell art supplies, used school supplies, like three ring binders. They would sell it instead of give it to the students. So the family would do anything to protect their status and their positions. Mr. J was going up against what felt like a mountain as tall as Mount Everest but he was willing to do anything to protect these kids he didn't care if nobody stood behind him if the nurses and the other teachers wouldn't listen the next step was the police so he went to the local police station after work one day and the police listened intently as he's telling a story of what he had heard they listened but it didn't seem like they were taking any notes and he questioned why aren't you guys writing this all down When he was done, the police doubted if the students could even communicate clearly what did or didn't happen to them.

39:17How do you know it's not just miscommunication? What are you saying? Just because some of the students are deaf or mute? Are you serious right now? The police did contact the victim's parents and they asked the victim's parents to get all the evidence, to go gather all the evidence of the abuse so that they can maybe feel inspired to do their damn jobs. When the parents would try and argue the police should be doing that, how are they going to walk in and look for evidence in a school? The police would casually just state, well, then I think this is a case for the child services department and not us.

39:48You should take your complaints there. CSD would send them back to the police. Everyone kept bouncing the case around because it, quote, wasn't their jurisdiction. It just reminds me so much of this hell or fairy case. Nobody wanted to do their job. Nobody wanted to be accountable for anything. The police were assholes and they were super ableist. This particular police station avoided dealing with sexual crimes against people with disabilities, not even just minors, everyone with disabilities. These officers felt like people with disabilities were untrustworthy. Wow. They said they always change their stories.

40:22They stated if they have a mental disability, how can they remember correctly? Their job is to protect and serve the population. And here they are essentially allowing crimes against one of the most vulnerable groups of people. These officers are just as bad as the predators. So the teachers wouldn't listen. The school wouldn't listen. The police wouldn't listen. And Mr. J had one option left. And it was going to ruin his career and almost potentially ruin his entire life. He went to the media. He called the local news, the media outlets. He said he had insider information on one of the biggest child sexual assault scandals inside of a school for disabled students.

40:59He worked closely with the network NBC, and together they were able to gather nine victims that were willing to speak up about what happened to them. I believe a few of them had graduated, but most of them were current students, and I can't emphasize enough how brave these students are. Keep in mind, a lot of these kids live full-time on campus, they all have some degree of a hearing, speaking, or mental impairment, and a good majority of the kids had the mental functioning level of a toddler. The teachers knew that. They used it to their advantage. These kids were in the complete control of the authority figures and they were well aware of this.

41:35They were well aware that they had no power. It was them up against an entire school of wealthy elite people with social power and connections and all the tools available to communicate what they believed happened. And they still agreed to put their lives on the line, essentially. many of the perpetrators were out in the open once the documentary aired so NBC aired this whole documentary about all the crimes inside the Inwa school now I will say that this documentary wasn't that explosive people who cared cared people who didn't care didn't care it's not like the movie I think if this documentary came out today it would be a whole thing but back in the day people were just like well we don't really know and it's not really our business and I'm not even from that part of town.

42:19How would I know? And can we really go on a crusade? How would we even organize something like that? Many of the perpetrators, their names were out in the open in the documentary for the world to see. And the crazy thing is they had no shame. The vice principal, one of the more heinous abusers inside that entire administration, opened the door to his home for documentary makers and let them into the house. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. he sat down on his living room floor as if these are just family friends coming over to play poker. He's wearing underwear only? Yeah. So like they came over when he wasn't working and he's like, yeah, yeah, come in.

42:55He doesn't even go and get changed. He doesn't even like tell the intercom, hold on, I gotta go put on some clothes. And he knows what they're here for. These journalists aren't lying. They're not like, hey, we're here to deliver a chair. They're like, we are the NBC producers. We want to talk to you about this case. So it's not only that he doesn't, he doesn't even care. He doesn't even think this is going to affect how he looks. So he doesn't even try to look serious or anything. Yeah. He doesn't try to act shocked, serious, or hurt. He just lets them in and says, just by listening to the kids' so-called stories, like, how can you guys take this seriously?

43:29How can you come over here and give us all a freaking headache over some hearsay? So he's saying that the story is false and that the victims are liars? Not exactly. He continues, well, the nurses did it too. The teachers were constantly abusing the kids. Oh my God, there's this one teacher. I forget his name. He stopped working there. Kwong something, okay? He did it. You should ask him. I mean, even if the parents filed a complaint, nothing happened. So what do you want us to do? The kids have nowhere else to go. We're the ones taking them in. I know, you look so confused. I was so confused and I was like, oh, maybe this is like a translation mistake because I don't understand the thought process.

44:07But he's basically saying in a whiny tone as if the kids have nowhere else to go and being stuck there to be abused somehow makes it better. Like, it's almost like a, you're welcome we're even taking them in. So what? It's not perfect. At least we're taking them in. No one else wants to take them in. I truly don't know what's going on with this brain chemistry, but something is clearly not right. Another incident really stood out to me. The vice principal, again, later was interviewed by NBC, and he bluntly, audaciously told them, I already filed all the claims. I'm sorry, excuse me, what claims?

44:39For false allegations? It's not even an arguable story, really, but they made it all up. I was so shocked when the students lied. I mean, how could they do that to me? How could they do that to me? When I talked to the students, I was always encouraging. I always had good intentions. They were always starved for love. If my sin is being too nice and too kind, then fine. That's my sin. This is all so ridiculous. So now you're saying you never committed any crimes? Yep, never did. Swear to God. Side note, at this point, the principal's wife, So the vice principal's sister-in-law comes out and is like, oh my God, you guys again?

45:15What's wrong with you guys? The case is over. He resigned. So the vice principal had resigned after the documentary. He resigned. Okay, get over it. Wow. And the vice principal pulled out a letter and said, see, I told you guys I wasn't lying. He pulled out a paper and held it for the producers like a proud little rat. Like, I don't know how else to describe him. I'm sorry. But he's like showing it off this piece of paper. and it reads, Yujin, one of the victims, did not have sex with the head of administration. That's literally what it reads and she signed it along with six other signatures of students that were witnesses and guarantors.

45:53Ignoring the fact that minor signatures are not legally binding, this is so messed up for so many reasons. Can you imagine the amount of fear that Yujin went through when he R-worded her and now the R-worder is pressuring her into signing this document and the fact that she still had to see him, she still had to talk to him, She was 11, but he claimed he didn't pressure her at all. He said, no, no, no, I just very nicely asked her why she said the things that she said. And she admitted to me that Mr. J forced her to lie. You know, these are like the worst people. These kids need more love and attention.

46:26So they don't even treat them with that. They don't even treat them as equals. They already have a viewpoint of these kids. And then they took advantage of it and started a school just so they can take advantage. make money off them. So their intention from day one, like just the way they see them is already the worst type of person should be being near them. And they just took advantage of them and started school for this reason. So I don't think they started this for the right reason. They started this for this evil reason. Oh yeah. To make money off the government. To take advantage of them.

46:58Yeah. And then they're like, oh, well, we're also predators. So this is great. Yeah. And they're saying, no, we are at least doing the good thing, guys. I don't even know what to say. I mean, it's obvious that they are just monsters in all of this. And the fact that they made a bunch of kids sign a document. And I think it's also the audacity that he's holding up this piece of paper like, I told you so. What are you talking about? Like no one in the court of law is going to say, oh my God, that victim that's so scared of you. I guess that is a pretty legal piece of document. He says, I even have a video recording of her admitting that it was all lies.

47:33Thankfully, producers went to find someone else that was at that quote meeting. And they're all a bunch of kids. One of Yujin's friends said that the room, there was so much pressure. They kept telling Yujin, tell me the truth. Tell me the truth. And they suddenly got angry and started to hit Yujin. She told them the truth. And they said, no, that's not what we want you to say. They wanted her to deny that the R word ever happened. They said that they will be so nice to her if she said so. I thought something was wrong because if they don't have any sins, Why would they need to hit us? So even after that, the student doesn't really understand what was happening.

48:09They know it's wrong. They know that the administrator's bullying Eugene is wrong, but they don't really, they can't, they're too young to grasp the concept of why they're even doing that. So it's not a moment of these students being like, see, they're trying to get us to change our story because they're in trouble. It's a moment for students being like, wait, no, but this is the truth. So now it's so weird and confusing and we don't understand what's going on. It was later revealed that the administrators convinced older students to literally waterboard victims and witnesses if they were talking to the breasts.

48:38Literally waterboard. Take them to the laundry room and waterboard them. Thankfully, even if Eugene had to formally recant her statement later in the trial, because of this coerced letter, it was just too iffy to use her as a testimony. There were students that witnessed her assault through the office window. They even saw the wiping with the tissues, the Coke, the cup of Coke part. they stated clearly for producers that Yujin was screaming no no no and that part is going to become devastating the fact that she was screaming no just keep this in mind so obviously when the coercion didn't work the vice principal asked to meet with Mr.

49:15J in a hotel lobby and begged him to negotiate with the administration if Mr. J was to just admit that he made all the kids lie he could get all the benefits that he would ever dream of he could be the next vice principal for crying out loud if he wanted the vice principal said I'm the chairman's son being on my good side it would be really good for you Mr. J rejected it and the head of administration you know he's married the vice principal is married he's doing all of this with the wife and kids and what's crazier is that the wife is sticking by his side his wife comes out and begs pleads with Mr.

49:47J and she says my husband is not responsible for any of this he did not do it he could go to prison for a really long time because of this please you have to help us. Mr. J declined and he went to the media and told them what happened. The school was super pissed with all the negative press that they were getting. They didn't even care about doing damage control. They just felt rage. So they fired Mr. J on the spot. They responded to journalists. Deaf people always lie. Wow. Deaf people always lie. It's in their nature. They lie as much as they eat. I was so shocked at this line. Okay. They lie as much as they eat is such a I don't know if it comes off in the translation, but in Korean, it's such a disgusting way to describe something.

50:32It's like you don't even see them as humans. You see them as like animals. They said, teachers who I know also said the same thing as me. Deaf people always act however they want for their own comfort. They only think about the present moment. That's why they lie, and that's why we should never trust them. That's usually a firm iron rule in this industry. Can you imagine? This is like the, what are they called? The caretaker. caretaker of these like can you imagine yeah i don't know how do they think it's okay to say that too that's what i'm saying and i think like okay i think they are evil they are monsters and they did receive a lot of backlash but whatever the community whatever bubble they're in made them feel that was appropriate so it's not just the person saying it that's wrong there must be people behind this family that are like yeah i totally agree with you they must have family friends that they go out to eat dinner with and complain about the students that literally are their livelihood and everyone must say yeah you're totally right i just can't imagine what that community of their friends or those closest to them are like if they think that this is okay to say in public to producers probably making fun of them all the time jokes around and so like i said we're probably covering a small percentage of the abuse that truly happened the school was open for over 50 years.

51:46It's 50 years of abuse we're talking about and I'm sure it's just horrific to the point where I don't think any of the general population knows truly the full extent of what happened.

52:04I don't think people could be even more enraged. Parents of the school and the victim staged a sit-in. They demanded something to happen. I mean the police hadn't gotten involved, Mr. J was fired. The perpetrators are still working with children and getting paid by the government. The people who saw the documentary, they were mad, but it wasn't enough. It was still up to the parents to fight. They just wanted the school to shut down. They spent eight months, eight months of their lives on pause, living in front of the school on the street. They set up tents. They held signs that read, life is hard enough with a disability.

52:39How dare you? Harsh punishments for sexual predators. In a gut-wrenching moment, the parents would protest in a full bow, on their knees, forehead touching the hot cement, scraping their hands, palms, knees, everything on the cement. This position is really hard to keep. They're doing this non-stop, begging the public to help them. For hours in the heat, this is what they did. Sometimes students join them and they would wait outside the school gates with cartons of eggs and cake. When the Inua family would walk through the gates, they would egg them and then throw flour on them. You've most likely seen this in K-dramas.

53:16It's a real practice. It's one of the more severe social shame bullying tactics. And normally I'm against it, but I can't say that I'm mad on this case. And this is when media turned. Really random articles started coming out about how ungrateful students at this school were. The article were basically fluff pieces for the Inwa family, probably on their payroll. They would write things like, I mean, I get it. The students are upset, but this is still a working principle at the end of the day. We need to respect our teachers and elders. What are we teaching society? And they would say things like, this is a school that took them in when nobody else did.

53:48Okay. I really hate that sentiment. I really hate that sentiment. What does that even mean? No, they were getting rich off this school. They were getting rich off this school. I'm sure if given the chance, there are so many people who genuinely want to help these students that don't have the proper connections, or maybe they don't even have the proper education and that's why they can't. And because the school was still operating, the principal gathered up all the students that egged him and forced them to write apology letters. This guy wants apology letters for getting egged. Oh yeah. I mean, they were the driest apology letters that I have ever read in the history of my life, which like good for them, right?

54:25But they would write things like, I'm sorry to the principal for making him uncomfortable. Dear principal, we're sorry that we threw red paint at you. We're sorry that we egged you. From now on, we'll do the right things. The principal was pissed. He started to physically abuse them again. He would line up the students and slap them around and scream, because your parents are out there protesting and doing that weird shit. Now you're getting hit in here. Just know that this is because of your parents. No way. They're still inside? Yes. They have nowhere else to go. Finally, the protests gathered enough public interest and got enough civilians riled up that the police were pressured into launching an investigation.

55:01After a few months, Korean law enforcement arrested six Inwa school administrators and teachers. They were going to court. Nine victims were going to testify. The National Human Rights Center sent representatives to help prepare the victims and go through their trauma. Now, trial number one, there were a lot of rough details that came out during all of this. Just really rough allegations of abuse. You know, I'm talking watching adult films, forcing them to kiss and just really nasty, nasty stuff. I mean, most of which we've already covered. All of it is like coming out into the open during the trial in its full gruesome details.

55:39Another student, let's call her Soomin, she was one of the girls that would get invited over to the teacher's homes. This is very sick and twisted. So think about how vile the psychology behind these monsters are. The vice principal would want to abuse his student. He does it in the school, but it's not enough. He wants to now bring that student into his home that he shares with his wife and kids. He forces that student to eat dinner with his whole family while he tells his wife about how good of a student Sumin is. After dinner, the teacher, the vice principal, suggests that his wife and kids go run some quick errands while he and Sumin go over some practice tests.

56:13He then assaults the student in his own home. I feel like there's some sick psychology behind that. Like the risk it would take to even bring the students home and the whole dinner like it's so sick and twisted to me like what are you getting out of it it's like something is wrong with you yeah because he's getting something out of it and it didn't just happen once it happened multiple times to sumin alone and i can't imagine that she was the only one that this vice principal did this to if the girl refused to go to his house he would beat her and our word her in the school for retaliation so there was no winning speaking of retaliation those who ever looked like they would think about talking about the abuse they were beaten to a pulp the physical abuse in this school alone would have warranted a trial there is some photo evidence of it i'm not going to show it because these again are um i love a lot of it would happen on the bottoms like the butt right of and they're minor so i'm not going to show that but there's a um It's just, there's no part that looks like skin anymore.

57:19It's just blue, deep purple, like yellow, but not in like the yellow undertone, like the bruising yellow. It looks like it was done with some sort of long cane. So many of the parents of the victims actually knew about all of this, but they themselves struggled with mental or physical disabilities. And they knew that the police would never believe them because they weren't able-bodied. So they felt like their best way to protect their child was to help them feel better and would teach them how not to cause trouble. And what's so sad is these parents are always teaching these kids how not to be a burden to able-bodied people.

57:56And that kind of mindset is so heartbreaking because that's not how we should think at all. One victim's grandmother cried out, how can intellectual people do this? How do they even dare do something like this? the perpetrators were intellectual people. My granddaughter is deaf and she cannot speak a word. How can he do that to her? Do they feel no pity towards her? If there were no laws, I would find the perpetrator and tear them apart with my own two hands. She is a kid who cannot even speak. Do you remember Sooyoung at the beginning of this story? She was assaulted and then given two dollars.

58:32She would tell the principal what happened and he ignored her, right? She ended up graduating and tried to move on with her life. She got married, had a child, and she said every day all she thought about was the abuse. Even with her husband, she said it wasn't until the trial that she told him what actually happened. She was so worried that he would feel ashamed of her. She thought that he'd be upset with her. And she was so scared. And thankfully, he was a normal, morally upstanding person. He held her hand. He listened to her. And when she was done, his face was soaking wet with tears. And he told her, none of this is your fault.

59:02He told reporters, I was so angry after what I heard, I wanted to wipe out all the teachers. I just want to see them one time face to face. During the trial, the defense did some insane things. Their line of questioning towards So-young and another one who also was a victim, grew up, got married, and had a child. The lawyers asked, these are the perpetrators defense attorneys. They asked, how can you get married and pregnant if you had ever been R-worded? I'm sorry, what? Their logic in this was, if a person who is R-worded, they can never fall in love and get pregnant due to the trauma. They believed if someone is truly traumatized sexually, they can never heal from it, and there's no way that they could ever be intimate ever again.

59:41Therefore, if the victims got pregnant, there was no way that they were ever R-worded as kids. Another really infuriating detail to note is, it's going to be important throughout the trial, most of the students in the school were using sign language to communicate, and to put it nicely, their sign language education and vocabulary was questionable at best, detrimental at worst. Many of the teachers in the school didn't even know sign language. How do you expect the students to learn? I mean, regardless of the case or not, that is so devastating that they aren't even taught the ways to express their emotions and feelings like most people can.

1:00:12It's such a disservice. The students had a limited range of expression, including words to describe the exact series of events. And they were too young to even understand what really happened to them. They were, they just kept signing that they felt icky. They felt icky. other students said it was so sad because these kids they would go up on the stand and they would start getting so frustrated with themselves that they can't express what happened to them because they weren't given the tools and again i just want to disclaim that sign language is a complete language and the reason that they couldn't express it was not because sign language didn't have the words but they weren't taught that even if there were all the ways in the world for the kids to accurately express themselves, they weren't taught any of it.

1:00:58Spectators said the worst part was they ended up having to act out a lot of what happened because they just couldn't sign it. There were also issues with the initial trial where the interpretators that the prosecutors got, so this is on the government's end. I don't know why they did this. The interpretators barely knew sign language. So people who knew sign language that were spectating the trial, they're like, what is going on? So the prosecutors would ask, why would the teacher do this? The interpreter would say, why would the teacher do this? The student would respond. And then the prosecutor would ask, okay, what did he do?

1:01:31But then the interpreter would just say, why did he do this? So the kid is like, why are you, they look confused. Like, why are you, you just asked me this. I'm so confused. And because they're so young and vulnerable, they felt like, oh, maybe they're going to keep asking me until they like my answer. So sometimes they would keep changing their answer because it's like, why else would they keep asking me that? But that's not what the prosecutor was asking. The interpreter sucked. It got to the point where all of the other students that were showing up in support were like slamming their hands on tables, like getting so frustrated.

1:02:04And another nuance to note that I think is very important is that when you are testifying, especially when a young person is testifying, they, when you're vulnerable, you normally hold your hands around your body in sort of like a protective gesture, or maybe you don't make eye contact. Maybe you're crying and you're trying to keep a straight face and remove all emotion as you're recounting the series of events, right? But the nature of sign language that the children were using, they had to pull their hands and arms away from their body to talk. They had to leave their torsos uncovered, which made them even more vulnerable subconsciously.

1:02:39And to describe the emotions and actions, they can't just verbally say he lifted my shirt so like i said with the rudimentary and whole filled sign language that they were using and that they were taught they had to mine it out mime it out so they would even lift up their own shirt in the court to to really show what happened and another thing that's constantly taught to those that are learning sign language is that facial expressions are part of sign language because i think with um with speak spoken language you have the tone inflections that kind of indicate the mood or the vibe that you're trying to communicate across.

1:03:16With sign language, because the hand motions could mean similar things, you're using your face to express the emotion that you want the viewer to understand. I mean, even with tone inflections, if you have someone who's speaking in monotone, it's kind of hard to understand what type of emotion you're supposed to feel. So it's very important. And to recreate those facial expressions without personally being back in that trauma, I think is impossible. So the whole trial, they're reliving the trauma. They're basically ripping their heart bare to the court. And everyone was under the belief of, okay, this is really bad, but the kids are doing their part and the adults are going to do our part and we're going to fight for justice.

1:03:55And this worthy sentence will show the world that they can never do this again. It'll be a landmark case, right? The principal was given two years and 10 months. The vice principal, one of the more heinous people involved in all of this, was given eight months. Two nurses were given 10 months each. And most of these were then commuted to probation instead of jail time. How? Yeah, I'm going to get into it. Legal stuff. The judge wasn't even a bad person. The judge straight up kept apologizing to the victims because there was nothing he could legally do. It was shocking. It was shocking. The case could be classified as two crimes.

1:04:31crimes persecutable upon complaint. So in South Korea, SA, especially against minors at the time legally, you couldn't do it until the minors complained or pressed charges. Now, the way that the prosecutors were trying to go about this case is they were trying to get the perpetrators jailed for a very specific law, which is SA against people with disabilities. Why is that important? Why didn't they just do SA? Well, because SA is not a felony in South Korea, at least at the time it wasn't. So most people were getting like probation for essay. But if you did this for a minor with a disability, you would more likely get jail time.

1:05:10This was probably as harsh as the sentence gets. And they couldn't do essay against a minor because the statute of limitations at the time was one year, one year. So this kid endured the most traumatic thing that a human can ever and door really and they have one year to show up in court and lay their heart bare and do all these things otherwise your time is up can you imagine having a ticking time clock like over your head you just ruined a kid's life yeah and in return as long as nothing happens in a year you're free to go yeah now thankfully there is no statute of limitations or at least not um a one year one for if they are children with disabilities now here's the disgusting part the premise of all of this is that people with disabilities, this is where the ableism comes into strong play.

1:06:01The law is written that a person with a disability cannot fight back or say no. That's how they describe a disability. So even if you're able to sign no, even if you're able to shake your head no or scream for help, even if you are disabled and yet you can still speak and say, please stop or scream somebody help me, then you cannot technically be a part of this law. So let's take Yujin's case. Her R-worder held her down and assaulted her. She did have a disability that is listed as severe. However, there were witnesses that testified that she multiple times stated, no, no, I don't want this. So she said no.

1:06:39And because physically she could say no, she no longer qualified for the specific clause that she was a child with a disability. Now, SA against a child, they couldn't do it because the statute of limitations was up. So they got like nothing. Once the statement was signed to all the people in the court, so the victim's parents, fellow students, and I want to say this with, like I'm trying to phrase this with as much respect and sensitivity as possible, but if you know or have been around a deaf person, being deaf doesn't mean being mute. A lot of deaf people still have the capabilities of producing sound.

1:07:18And since they've never heard spoken language, it's next to impossible for them to mimic it because they can't hear the language, right? Which means if they're deaf from birth, they typically can't speak a spoken language, but they still make sounds and they can still yell. They can still wail. They can still cry. But again, since they've never heard someone else do it, like this is how humans are created. You know, so much is hearing. Even babies, so much is hearing, right? because they haven't heard people yell it's a different sort of sound that comes out when they yell and I don't know how to describe it but I think that's how humans were supposed to yell it's almost like a visceral like the purest form of a yell that I can describe it's like guttural it's so raw and I think you feel the grief and it's just it's different like it stays with you And that day, the entire courtroom was filled with the grief of the victims.

1:08:17And a reporter wrote, the moment that we heard the verdict, the courtroom was filled with the indescribable sounds from all the people. After the trial, the school was still opened. And after probation, all the administrators were back running the school. They were back around students because technically they had the right to hire whoever they wanted. There was no legal clause that said, hey, you can't be a teacher or an administrator out of school if you have this in your criminal history. Side note, Mr. J had to flee the country because he was attacked during this whole thing. Yeah, the defense attorney like came out with some crazy allegations against him.

1:08:52I don't even know how that was allowed in court, but yikes. And the public, you know, they were enraged by this verdict, but what can they do? Their lives moved on. So the public, they were mad, but they moved on until the movie came out. And this film was a box office hit. It had an audience of 4.7 million viewers, which doesn't sound like a lot. But that's 10 % of South Korea's population. Even the president at the time saw the movie. Another person who watched the movie was the South Korea's National Police Agency Commissioner, General Cho. General Cho got right to work. He formed a special team to investigate the school and he was really sneaky with it.

1:09:29I don't even think that the school knew that they were being watched again. They just knew like the movie came out and they were like, oh, bad press. Meanwhile, netizens were growing increasingly upset, and they wrote things like, what? In order to punish a trash criminal, the victim has to make a movie or a novel and make every single person in the country angry? That's how the justice system works now? We all have to get so emotionally invested in every case? The public put so much social pressure on the police department that the Inwa school sexual assault case was officially reopened, and it was a lot.

1:09:59Now, they couldn't gather the same victims because that's double jeopardy. They can't be tried for the same crimes against the same victims. Like I said, double jeopardy. So they started focusing on different victims. And the victims now were being represented by a huge human rights attorney, Lee Meng-suk. If you saw this man walking down the street in Korea, you would think he's just a random ajaxi, like middle-aged man. He tackled some of the biggest human rights cases in South Korea. When an eight-year-old known to the nation by her alias, Nayeon-hee, was brutally assaulted in a public restroom.

1:10:29Do you remember that case? to the point where she was left permanently disabled. He represented the eight-year-old. He was the reason that the perpetrator even got any jail time. He really cared about the kids, and this man was smart. Mr. Lee knew that every case needs a villain's face. You know, that's how it is. That's why big corporations are harder to be canceled online than a celebrity because with a celebrity, you have a face. You can attach these emotions to a face. With corporations, it's a board of directors. It's a board of investors, executives. Every story needs a villain, and he thought the problem was the administration was too big of a villain.

1:11:04So they singled out the vice principal. That would be the face of their case. But the problem is he can't be tried again for the exact crimes because of double jeopardy. So lawyer Lee does something different. He was going to get the children treatment, therapy. First of all, he was the first person to ever care about their futures. He wanted them on the path to healing. But not only that, he wanted to do something that was never done before, a landmark case. he was going to sue the perpetrators for inflicting injury. What injury? Mental trauma. This would be the first time in South Korea that someone would sue for mental, like emotional distress after a sexual crime.

1:11:42Because usually during the court trials, people would talk about the physical injuries, but they would never really even acknowledge the mental trauma that would linger for the rest of their lives. So now he was solely going to use that because there is no statute of limitations for inflicting injuries. And he was going to argue this was an injury. And the statute of limitations would start the day they get diagnosed with the injury. So they needed some sort of trauma diagnosis. And he wanted to bring in the best of the best. Because these kids were living on social welfare. They didn't have funds.

1:12:16His friend was a psychiatry professor at Yonsei University. This is like Korea's Johns Hopkins, if you will. And Yonsei is a public institution. And the hospital that they had near this school, because they have hospitals all over the country, they were underfunded and understaffed, even though they're one of the biggest institutions. It sounds easy, but this professor had to work with so many people at Yeonse. And they had to move so many schedules around. Everyone worked overtime to get these students in. And as they were waiting, because these students cannot be diagnosed unless they are inpatient.

1:12:48As they're waiting for everything to work out, the doctors and nurses on that floor that would be in contact with these students, they obviously couldn't learn that much, but they learned. Hi, thank you. Are you hungry? Are you sleepy? Are you okay? Do you need anything? Inside language. They were able to get volunteer drivers. People in the community stepped up. There's a lot of students. They would need to be driven from hospital to hospital, from lawyer appointment to court dates. people volunteered to drive them around and just get them to these places people volunteered to drive the parents around to be able to make sure that they're there and the kids were all sadly diagnosed with some sort of PTSD from the abuse the only silver lining of that diagnosis would be that now lawyer lee could aggressively go after the abusers if they won this would change the country really he even told the judge in the courtroom please take a close look at the victim's eyes, their voice, their facial expressions and body reactions.

1:13:47Even if you don't speak sign language, even if you can't understand the words that the victims are saying, you don't need to understand the words to know what kind of pain that they've been through. He would tell the attorneys on his team and the interpreters, don't ask difficult words, abstract words or long sentences. Don't ask short answered questions like yes or no answers. Ask them questions in an open manner. This time, a bunch of very, very capable, competent interpreters volunteered to be a part of this case. They had the Sexual Violence Counseling Center work on this. They had psychiatrists from Yeon-seh, psychologists, sign language interpreters, drivers, court, like everyone.

1:14:25Basically, Yeon-seh University was backing these kids. Everyone volunteered their time and effort and expertise. and it worked. The judge accepted the infliction of injury charge and the vice principal, the worst of them all, the one that had gotten eight months, he got 12 years in prison. It's still small, but the court back in Korea, back in the day and still today, not very inclined to send someone to jail for more than 10 years for a sexual crime, even if it's some of the most heinous. But he still tried to appeal his sentence saying that it was too harsh. Thankfully, it was denied. But still, the rest got virtually no punishment.

1:15:06The good news is the school was shut down and the students were sent to other boarding schools. A lot changed, though. But one victim's parents said, essay on a child is like murdering a soul. The physical or mental wound remains forever. The offender can avoid punishment after a certain period because of the statute of limitations, but for the kid, it's the rest of their lives. But Korea got to work. Civilians started advocating and protesting the change to the SA law. So there is a clause in basically all SA laws at the time that said, did they fight back? They said that shouldn't even be a question, especially with minors and particularly minors with disabilities.

1:15:45So that's in the works. And prior to this, if a victim of SA did not formally press charges or sue the perpetrator, the police would do nothing. That has also been changed. Now police are allowed to go after these abusers without the victim being involved, which is a very good thing because that's just re-traumatizing them, right? Especially right after. And like the way that some of these trials were going on, it was weird. There was also another law put in place that said that if you are a state-funded institution, like a welfare establishment, you cannot hire only family members. One-third of hires have to be outsiders, which I get.

1:16:18It's like a good step in the direction, but not enough. Like imagine going up against two-thirds of an institution and their one big family. So things have changed. but I think that this is still something that every South Korean probably feels a lot of pain about it's definitely a very it was a movie and it was a case that I think changed everyone just like this haewar fairy case just like even itaewon I think a lot of areas and a lot of countries have these moments where people just the civilians get fed up and they start putting their foot down and I think this was one of them. Before I finish up the episode, let me tell you about the principal's thesis paper that was later uncovered by netizens.

1:17:02The principal of Inwa, one of the abusers, wrote a huge thesis paper on how important it is to take care of disabled people. He wrote, In order to help students with disabilities, treatment and rehabilitation has to be given from someone who loves them from the heart. It is the caretaker's job to secure the student's uncertain future without a single ounce of regret. Caretakers should serve in the role of a helping hand in place of the disabled. A helping hand, he said. If that's how he gives a helping hand, I think we should all hope that he gets a handful of care every single day for the rest of his miserable life.

1:17:42And that is it for today's episode. Please stay safe and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye.