Chul Hwan Kang’s Yoduk Story

Chul Hwan Kang arrived in South Korea in 1992, having survived detention in living hell, serving in the labor camp for political prisoners called “Yoduk” from the age of 9 to 19 — for the sole reason that his grandfather was accused of criticizing the North Korean regime.

Kang recounts his experience as a young person in the camps stating that children would spend the day beginning at 6 o’clock in the morning working hard manual labor. The failure to accomplish the work quota may result in reduced food rations.

At age 17, he was less than 150 centimeters tall (5 feet) and weighed about 40 kilograms (88 pounds). In fact, Kang’s size was characteristic of all detained children, whose growth was universally retarded by continuous malnutrition and brutality.

Girls were no taller than 145 centimeters by their late teens. With unkempt hair and lacking the nutrition critical to adolescent development, they did not look like girls, forced to become part of an androgynous and anonymous prison population.