Lai Đại Hàn (; ),ĐạiHà sometimes Lai Daihan or Lai Tai Han, is a Vietnamese term for a racially mixed person born to a South Korean father and a Vietnamese mother as a result of South Korea's participation in the Vietnam War. Political controversies continue due to the fact that some of the generation were conceived through wartime sexual assault, which is currently unacknowledged by the South Korean government, and due to the unequal and discriminatory treatment they have faced from the Vietnamese government.
Etymology
Definition
A 2010 article in the academic journal Pacific Affairs followed the phrase "Lai Daihan" with the following in parentheses: "(the) children of South Korean fathers and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War".
The noun or adjective lai (chữ Nôm: 𤳆) can mean any hybrid, including an animal or tree, but in this context is pejorative, meaning "mixed-blood". "Đại Hàn" (chữ Hán: 大韓) was the standard Vietnamese term for South Korea (the Sino-Vietnamese equivalent of ), although today "Hàn Quốc" (Hanguk in Korean) is more common. Since "lai" is offensive the term "lai Đại Hàn" itself does not appear in official Vietnamese sources, except in relation for example to the name of the South Korean film "Lai Đại Hàn."
Causes and numbers
The number of Lai Dai Han that were born as a result of rape of South Vietnamese women by South Korean troops remains under debate, with one study positing that are as many as 150,000. According to Susumu Nomura, roughly 90% of Lai Dai Han cases resulted from South Korean troops and businessmen engaged in consensual relationships with Vietnamese women, but were forced to leave after the departure of South Korean forces from South Vietnam in early 1973 or during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
The exact number of Lai Dai Han is unknown. According to Busan Ilbo, there are at least 5,000 and as many as 30,000. According to Maeil Business, however, there are 1,000 at least. A 1998 paper which was cited in a 2015 paper said that the South Korean government put the number of Lai Dai Han at 1,500.
There were estimated to be 800 mothers of Lai Dai Han conceived due to rape who were still alive in 2015, from a petition calling for an apology from the Korean government.
Reports of sexual assault
An August 16, 2013 article in PRI said that South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, Kwon Ki-hyeon, stated that "Such intentional, organized and systemized civilian massacres by the Korean army are impossible. If such an incident did exist, it would have been exposed and made public a long time ago. The Republic of Korea fought in Vietnam to stop the Communization of a free South Vietnam. Since our army executed our mission under strict rules, there was no sexual exploitation of Vietnamese women." The article also noted that "Historians agree that Korean troops fathered a large number of mixed Korean-Vietnamese children called Lai Dai Han. But it remains unclear the extent to which this was battlefield rape versus prostitution."
An April 25, 2015 article in The Hankyoreh stated that Kim Nak-yeong, who was a staff sergeant at Bình Khê in Bình Định Province, South Vietnam from May 1971 to June 1972 said, "Some of the units didn't cause any problems because they were strictly instructed not to do harm to civilians. However, I heard a lot of talk about brutal sexual assaults taking place throughout the operation zones, and my understanding is that there's a definite possibility it was true." The article also reported quotes from the interviews of ten elderly Vietnamese women who said to be victims of sexual assaults perpetrated by the South Korean military during the Vietnam War in Bình Định Province. One stated that, "Four people took turns doing it to me one at a time", and another was quoted as saying, "They'd put one person at a time in the trench, keep me there all day and night and just rape me again and again".