Recommendations Including Comprehensive Damage Recovery Measures
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has decided to investigate human rights violations at adult vagrant detention facilities including Seoul Municipal Rehabilitation Center, Daegu Municipal Hope Center, Chungnam Cheonseongwon, and Gyeonggi Seonghyewon.
On the 9th, the TRC announced at its 86th meeting that it judged the case as a serious human rights violation and decided to investigate the truth. This case involves human rights abuses such as forced detention, revolving-door admissions, assault and harsh treatment, solitary confinement, and forced labor at adult vagrant detention facilities operated under the same government policy as the Busan Brothers Home in 1987.
The TRC comprehensively reviewed and analyzed official documents and detainee personal record cards for the 13 applicants this time and determined them to be victims. Through the investigation, the TRC confirmed that hundreds of bodies of detainees who died at Chungnam Cheonseongwon were delivered to a certain medical college; that new admissions to Daegu Municipal Hope Center who were judged to have mental illnesses were classified and detained in psychiatric wards and isolated in solitary confinement until they received medication; and that women who were pregnant upon admission gave birth at the facility and were transferred to adoption agencies for overseas adoption purposes.
The TRC recommended that the government issue an official apology to the victims, take substantial measures to restore damages, establish measures to prevent recurrence of human rights violations in detention facilities, and prepare continuous support plans for the victims.
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