IPNEWS: Korean workers dispatched during the construction boom in Liberia in the 1980s
I gave birth to a child out of wedlock and left… Remaining Children, Poverty – Tears of Discrimination
Even if he steals all his assets and comes to Korea, he finds his father and decides on paternity, ‘Picking stars from the sky’
Livelihood-naturalization test parallel double high school… “I hope you don’t pass on the pain to your children”
“Find my dad. He came to Africa in the 1980s and his last name is Kang.”
In March 2019, a man in his early 30s came to a lawyer’s office in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, saying, “I want to meet my father.” A native of Liberia, in West Africa, he said that the name ‘Seo Gwan-woo’ was also coined by himself. Although his skin color was close to that of a black man, Kwan-woo clearly had a Korean face. He spoke softly in English with a Liberian accent.
“I’m looking for a Korean named Kang, who was dispatched to Liberia from Daewoo E&C at the time.”
“Is that all information?”
Lawyer Park Sun-young asked him. Gwanwoo put the three sheets of paper down on the desk. It was the family relation certificate brought from Liberia, and the birth certificate of himself and his mother. There was no information about his father. Attorney Park sighed.
“It is more difficult than finding Kim Chul-soo in Seoul… ”
zoom inOn December 21 last year, Seo Gwan-woo met reporters at his studio in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do. The Taegeukgi in the background was a gift from his stepfather who helped him instead of his Korean father when he was living in Liberia.
Born in Liberia in 1988, Guan-wu has never seen his father’s face. There is not even a picture of his father. In the 1980s, Daewoo E&C and its partners dispatched workers to Liberia while constructing large-scale social infrastructure such as roads. Guan Yu’s father, Mr. Kang, was a worker dispatched at that time.
Kang had a wife and children in Korea, but he met a Liberian woman who was 18 years old at the time and was a high school student for six months. When she found out that this woman was pregnant, Kang said, “She has family in her hometown, so she can’t be responsible for the child in her belly.” When Kwan-woo was born in 1988, Mr. Kang had already returned to Korea. When the civil war broke out in Liberia the following year, Kang completely cut off contact with Guan-wu’s mother. At that time, there were workers from many countries, including Germany and Lebanon, in Liberia, and it was not uncommon for them to have children with local women. While many of them were responsible for the children they had, most Korean men were busy running away to their home countries.
Christina Doh (41), who was pregnant with the child of a Korean man she met in Liberia in 2004, but the man left for Korea before giving birth. “There were many cases where they hid the truth and didn’t take responsibility when a child was born,” he said.
As Guan Yu grew up, he more and more resembled his father’s face. Gwan-woo was the only mixed Asian child in his school. His classmates teased him for his relatively light complexion as “the son of a master and a slave.” In Liberia, a country founded in 1847 by freed slaves from the United States, that word was an insult.
“Mom, why do I look like this?”
When Gwan-woo turned nine years old, he asked his mother. It was then that he first learned that his biological father was Korean. Her mother raised Guan Yu, barely making ends meet in the midst of a bitter civil war. Guan Yu said, “I resented his father who ran away all my life, and I missed him at the same time.”
After graduating from university in Liberia, Kwan-woo decided to go to Korea in 2017 when he turned 29. “I really wanted to find my father who hadn’t been there all my growing up. I also wanted to experience Korean culture, which forms half of me.”
I saved up money for several years to go to Korea, but after buying a plane ticket to Korea via Ghana, South Africa, and China, I had 300,000 won left. He once went down to Gwangju, where he had a Liberian acquaintance. He went to and from various government offices, but he could not get any help because he had no information other than that his father’s last name was Kang.
I had to earn money to find my father. He did factory work, orchard work, loading and unloading couriers, and delivering chicken. He traveled all over the country, including Gwangju, Ansan-si, Gyeongnam-do, Miryang-si, and Chungmuro, Seoul. It was common to leave work at 1:00 a.m., close my eyes, and go to work at 5:00 a.m. In my spare time, I sent e-mails to people and organizations that could be helped.
zoom inSeo Kwan-woo visits a store run by Christina Do, a Liberian, in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do. Do, who met a Korean man in Liberia and gave birth to a daughter and raised her alone, is the “mentor” Gwan-woo relies on the most since he came to Korea in 2017 to find his father.
In 2019, after two years, the opportunity came. It was the World Korean Lawyers Association, which provided free advice on cases of public interest. Attorney Park, who was in charge of Gwan-woo, said, “I thought that I would never be able to find a person from 30 years ago who only knew his last name.” Attorney Park, who had not been able to find a breakthrough for three months, got a clue from the words of a police officer he knew. “Records at the immigration office remain almost permanently.” It meant that Kang’s immigration records could still be left.
I hurriedly applied to the court to inquire about the facts of the immigration office (currently the Immigration Office). It was also difficult to specify the timing, so it was decided to search the names of all Koreans who entered Liberia for 10 years from 1980 to 1989. After 2 weeks, the results came out. In the 1980s, there was only one man with the surname Kang who traveled to and from Liberia.
Attorney Park found Kang’s current address and sent a complaint to prove that Gwan-woo was his father. Guan Yu was delighted that he could finally find his father. However, his father did not appear at the first trial held six months later. “I was frustrated because he wanted to see my father never wanted to see me in his life.”
The court requested genetic testing of the father and son of Gwan-woo at the Forensic Science Research Institute of Seoul National University Medical School. I contacted Mr. Kang to come out for a test, but he was not likely to respond. On the day of the examination, in February 2020, Gwan-woo was on his way to the forensic science research laboratory, and someone suddenly spoke to him. He was an elderly man sitting on a chair in the hallway.
“Really?” came out of Guan-wu’s mouth. Mr. Kang shed tears and hugged Guan Yu. Kang said in a phone call with the reporter, “I knew as soon as I saw that my face resembled me, so I was of my blood.” He said that his family hid the warden from coming to the house, so he could not appear at the trial. Gwan-woo said, “I thought he would say ‘I’ve hated you for 30 years’ when I met my father, but I was so glad and happy to see him.”
zoom inKwanwoo wore a custom-made T-shirt and posed in front of the Korean flag hanging in his studio. The T-shirt has the name of his Instagram account, ‘Korean mixed blood (hanguk_mixed)’ written on it.]
Meeting a Korean father like Gwan-woo is close to a miracle. There are at least dozens of illegitimate children of Korean origin in Liberia, but even stepping on Korean soil is difficult. Prince Hyunbo Shim (30), also a Liberian with a Korean father, also managed to arrive in Korea in 2018, but the journey thereafter has not been smooth.
Hyunbo was born in Liberia in 1993 to a father, Simmo, who ran a clothing business, and a Liberian mother. Her mother, who was only 15 years old, gave in to her parents’ demands and she married Shim when Sim, then in her 40s, pushed for her marriage by providing various accommodations to her mother’s family. Her mother used to tell Hyun-bo with tears in her eyes, “I wanted to study and have a social life, but I was locked in by a man.”
My mother gave birth to three siblings with her Korean husband. Shim gave his brother and sister Korean names. Her mother said they would grow up like princesses and princes, and she called her children ‘Princess’ and ‘Princess’. However, their lives collapsed with the civil war. Mr. Sim returned to his family in Korea alone when the civil war broke out, and he lost contact with him forever.
Hyeon-bo’s mother begged to raise her three young siblings during the civil war. Her children even watched as her mother was sexually abused by men in her neighborhood. Hyeon-bo said of her “her older sister and her younger sister were left in different houses. Her three siblings lived apart and were treated like dogs, receiving and eating leftovers,” she said. People teased Hyeon-bo, saying, “Your mother married a white man. Why is she so poor?”
oom inShim Hyun-bo was born to a Korean father and a Liberian mother. Due to his poverty, Shim stopped studying and worked at construction sites to earn a living. ＜Provided by Sim Hyun-bo＞
Hyeon-bo, who dropped out of school and saved money like a stickler, found out about a training program in Korea while looking for job training. It was a golden opportunity for him to go to Korea and find his father. Hyeon-bo disposed of all the cars and motorcycles he owned, as well as the machines he operated at a bargain price of 4,000 dollars (approximately 5.08 million won), and boarded a plane to Korea. He wanted to find and bury his father.
“Why did you make us live in such pain? Even if we were 100% Korean, would they have abandoned it?”
All Hyunbo knew about his father was his first name Seokja and that he was from Busan. In November 2018, as soon as he arrived in Uijeongbu City, Gyeonggi Province, where the trainees live together, he headed to Busan. He was greeted by the coldness of sub-zero that he felt for the first time in his life and an unfamiliar landscape. Bo Hyeon-bo said, “When looking for someone in Liberia, if you ask anyone, you can find out right away. There are too many people in Korea, and everyone seemed busy.”
After getting off at Busan Station, Hyeonbo stood in the plaza in front of the station for a while. He didn’t know where to start. I mustered up the courage to enter a nearby clothing store, but was at a loss for words. The clerk looked suspiciously at him as he stood still, but did not speak to him. In the end, Hyeonbo wandered around the station for an hour or two before boarding the train back to Seoul.
He confided his circumstances to his Korean colleagues, whom he became close to at the workplace where he worked as an industrial trainee, and sought help. But their answer was cold. “In Korea, we don’t like it when children out of wedlock are exposed. Your father will too.” Hyeon-bo, who came to Korea after disposing of all his property, went back to Liberia without taking a single step closer to his father during the three-month training period.
- “I want to study Korean, but when will I earn money?”
Gwan-woo succeeded in legally recognizing his father Kang’s parentage, but now he is standing in front of another wall. Although it was listed on Mr. Kang’s family relationship certificate, his nationality is still Liberia. The two father and son talk on the phone once or twice a week, but Mr. Kang’s wife and children do not accept Guan Yu.
Cristina Doh, a Liberian woman who is Kwan-woo’s ‘mentor’ and runs a shop in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do, told the reporter:
Guan Yu won a sad victory
He said, “It is a family on paper that you will never meet in real life.” She, too, met a Korean man before the civil war and gave birth to her daughter, but she raised her alone and brought her daughter to Korea in 2008.
zoom inChristina Doh (right) came to Korea in 2008. Doh was also pregnant with a child from a Korean man she met in Liberia in 2004, but her man left for Korea before she gave birth. Ondo went to Korea alone in 2008. Ondo succeeded in obtaining Korean nationality for her daughter in one year and two months. She has been helping Liberians in similar circumstances, including Kwan-Woo Seo (left).
Guan-wu’s next goal is to acquire Korean citizenship. He said, “To bring her mother, who has worked hard all her life, to Korea, she needs a stable status, a job, and a home.” Under the current law, minor children are automatically given Korean nationality if one of their parents is Korean, but it is different when they are identified as Korean children after they become adults. In order for Guan-wu to obtain Korean citizenship, he must pass a naturalization test that assesses his Korean language proficiency and understanding of Korean culture.
zoom inSeo Kwan-woo succeeded in finding his Korean father, but his nationality is still Liberian. I often visit the Immigration Office for visa extensions, etc., but the staff respond in Korean, so it is not easy to communicate.
It is a formidable test for Guan-wu, who works at most six or seven days a week in a shipping company. He showed the reporter his complicated schedule, saying, “I often have to go out early in the morning because of irregular work.” The education program for naturalization test takers operated by the Ministry of Justice is also held on weekends, so it is a ‘pie in the sky’ for Gwan-woo, who often works on weekends.
His Korean language skills are still at the beginner level. Yoon In-cheol, the owner of a bar in Pyeongtaek City where Gwan-woo worked three years ago, laughed, saying, “When I saw female employees calling me oppa, Gwan-woo also called me oppa.” Park Cheong-jin, who is now Gwan-woo’s boss, also said, “Kwan-woo is a diligent employee, but sometimes it is difficult to understand what he is saying.”
Kwan-woo said, “I want to concentrate on studying Korean, but I can’t earn money.” There are more than 10 basic Korean language textbooks piled up on the desk of the studio where Kwan-woo lives, but few of them have been finished.
zoom inIn order to acquire Korean citizenship, you must pass the naturalization test, which evaluates your Korean language skills, but it is not easy to find time to study because of work.
Since two years ago, Kwan-woo has been running a Facebook group that invites mixed-race African-Korean children to share daily life and information. It is this group that connects Guan-wu in Korea with Hyeon-bo in Liberia. The number of subscribers has already exceeded 30. Every week, Gwanwoo shares the process of finding his father, how to issue a visa in Korea, and articles related to Korean illegitimate children.
The government is not doing any research on the actual situation of these people. The Ministry of Justice said in the data submitted to the office of Rep. Cho Jeong-hoon for the transition of the era, “We do not have a current status of Korean illegitimate children by African country.” Hwang Pil-kyu, an attorney at the Public Interest Human Rights Law Foundation, pointed out, “It is a clear problem that young people who have suffered from the mistakes of the Korean people want to find their families, but culturally, linguistically and institutionally, the road is almost blocked.”
Shim Hyun-bo, born to a Korean father and a Liberian mother, is holding a newborn son in her arms in 2021. Shim came to South Korea in 2018 to find his father, who left him, his two sisters, and his wife and left for his homeland.
Hyeon-bo has a son who is not yet two years old.
“I want my son to grow up without experiencing the pain I went through. I hope my son can receive the education and welfare benefits of Korea that I have never enjoyed. That is why I want to go to Korea and settle down.”
He said he had not yet given up hope that he could find his father in Korea.
