Who are the second generation Korean Atomic Bomb Victims?

Hyun Sinae

Generally, the terminology Hibakusha means people who were bombed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at firsthand in 1945.  However, even though the fact that the damage of an atomic bombing inherits to the descendants was not publicly verified, the harm of the atomic bomb has been shown not only from the firsthand victims but also from their descendants.  Therefore, the victims who have been suffered from the mental and physical damage of the atomic bomb such as chromosome aberration can also be included in the atomic bomb victims (Genbaku Higaisha).

The Korean atomic bomb victims, as it stands, are the people who are bombed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and their sons and daughters are the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims.  Until now, Japanese government as well as Korean government has not accepted the existence of the second generation of the victims. In fact, there are not many people who reveal themselves as the second generation of the atomic bomb victims.  However, even though there are a few revealed victims, the damage of the atomic bomb has been inherited from generation to generation physically and mentally.

There are more than 7,500 second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims in Korea until now, according to the report from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea issued in 2005. Considering that the recent number of the members of the Association for Korean Atomic Bomb Victims is around 2,300, the number of the second generation can be estimated to about 7,000 to 10,000.  And about 30% of those people are suffering from the aftereffect of an atomic bomb.  Although majority of the second generations are healthy, there still exist more than 2,000 people suffering from the aftereffect, as well as the disease and poverty inherited from their parents.

It is clear that those suffering people are the victims of the atomic bomb. They unwillingly inherited the continuous mental distress such as the fear of social discrimination, and latent diseases from their parents.  Not like the first generation or the firsthand atomic bomb victims, they are ignored from both Korean and Japanese government so that revealing themselves as the second generation of the atomic bomb victims is almost equal to ‘coming-out.’  After they reveal the fact in this situation without any social protection, the only response from the society will be discrimination, alienation, and following despair and frustration that they would need to endure.  The guiltiness of the first generation changes into the mental agony for the second generation that they have innately received the damage from their parents.

The desperate situation of the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims are well expressed in the report of the fact-finding survey of the second generation by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

“According to the study, the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victim suffer from chronic diseases such as anemia, cardiac infarction, angina and depression, schizophrenia and various malignant diseases. Postal examination of 1,226 second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victim shows that second male generation suffer anemia 88 times normal prevalence, cardiac infarction, angina 81 times, depression 65 times, schizophrenia 23 times, asthma 26 times, thyroid diseases 14 times, gastric and duodenal ulcers 9.7 times, and colon cancer 7.9 times.  Second female generation also suffer cardiac infarction and angina 89 times, depression 71 times, breast benign tumors 64 times, asthma 23 times, schizophrenia 18 times, gastric and duodenal ulcers 16 times, hepatic cancer 13 times, leukemia 13 times, thyroid diseases 10 times and stomach cancer 6.1 times.

“Information from 4,090 second generations out of 1,092 the Korean atomic bomb victim’s families shows 156 out of 299 (over half) died before the age of 10 and the causes of 182 (60.9%) deaths had not even illuminated. 19 (0.5%) of living second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victim show congenital malformations and diseases.”

“Furthermore, the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims are reportedly exposed to the poverty and the social discrimination. As the result of in-depth interview with 47 second generations, from the age of 26 to 58, 20 interviewees, more than the half, were jobless and the average of monthly income of their families that support their living were 1,260,000 won (approximately 1,200 US dollars), which indicates that they are struggling for a living.  Additionally, several cases indicated that they hide that they are the second generation of the atomic bomb victim even to their spouses because of the fear of discrimination in marriage and employment.”

This is not a past affairs but a present reality

Until now, supports from Japanese government and Korean government are limited to the firsthand Korean atomic bomb victims.  In 1973, a clinic for the atomic bomb victims was established in Hapcheon, Gyeongsangnamdo, with the funds from a Japanese civil organization, National Council for Peace and Against Nuclear Weapons (KAKKIN). Korean government has subsidized only 50% of the national insurance allotment since 1998.  Japanese government aided a relief fund of 4 billion yen for Korean atomic bomb victims as a “humanitarian aid” and with the Korean government funds, the Hapcheon Welfare Center for Atomic Bomb Victims was built, currently housing 80 first generation atomic bomb victims.  The series of results reveal how passively and negatively both Japanese and Korean governments are dealing with the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims.

It is evident that the second generation of the Korean atomic bomb victims is victimized by the past Japanese imperialism and the United States’ nuclear hegemony. However, it is not sufficient to understand their problem as an issues in past, so called offspring of the colonial age.  Although both governments have withheld the second generation issues formally, the victims have been suffering from the atomic bomb agony for more than a century.  In particular, considering how the Koreans perceives the atomic bombing as a factor that brought the liberation of the Korean peninsula, the Korean atomic bomb victims have been suffering physically from ignorance and indifference, and injured mentally with economic difficulties as well as social alienation.

This is the reality that all the second generation Korean atomic bomb victims are facing now.  It is not past affairs to them.  That is, the nightmare of the atomic bomb has not ended.  At the same time, the issue may continue in the future because there still exists the nuclear deterrence as well as the nuclear arms races, and all the more, those fatal races have been accelerated in recent post-cold war era.

The aid for the Korean atomic bomb victims should not be limited in medical services or humanitarian aid.  To alleviate their wounded minds caused by the governments forcing them to bare the damage of the atomic bombing as an individual responsibility for the last sixty years, both Japanese and Korean government must pledge human rights insurance as well as regaining the impaired reputation. In addition, they have to start further investigation of the actual condition of the victims immediately to manage a substantial institutional support.

While preceding those procedures, the most important task is that the improvement of the social perspectives towards the Korean atomic bomb victims, and the proliferation of the anti-nuclear armament movement.  Since the social discrimination and the ignorance originated from our insensibility of the atomic bomb, it is our mission to improve the just and objective perspectives for the victims.  Adding to the institutional support for the victims, we have to surrender the nuclear deterrence threatening the international community, and request the nuclear weapon states to implement nuclear disarmament right now, so that we can essentially ease the ultimate fear and can cure the miserable memories of the atomic bombing.  We must always keep in mind that only when we realize the significance of the problem of the atomic bomb victims, we can step forward to the final destination; peace without nuclear armament.