Commission: Seoul government responsible for facility abuse

South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found the country’s past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers Home, a state-funded vagrants’ facility where thousands were enslaved and abused from the 1960s to 1980s.
The commission on Wednesday announced the initial results from its investigation into human rights violations at Brothers, including extreme cases of forced labor, violence and deaths.
The commission said it has so far confirmed 657 deaths at Brothers, which was higher than the previously known tally of 513 between 1975 and 1986 documented in the facility’s records.
It also found that police in the southern city of Busan, where the facility was located, randomly grabbed people off the streets to send them to Brothers, regardless of whether they had easily identifiable homes or families, and often allowed Brothers employees moving in trucks to do the kidnapping themselves.
The commission also said it found that Brothers, run by late owner Park In-keun and his family, embezzled the wages of thousands of inmates who were forced into slave labor.
So far, no one has been held accountable for hundreds of deaths, rapes and beatings at Brothers.