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Sewol sinking victims’ families and volunteers do maintenance work on tents at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul

“The Sewol tragedy was a sinking of human rights.”

An investigative team examining human rights in connection with the sinking of the Sewol ferry came to this conclusion after a five-month-long effort launched last February to record the voices of 45 victims.

The team, whose 46 members include human rights activists, social workers, doctors, authors, lawyers, and students, also met with a full range of “invisible victims,” including the parents of students and teachers who died in the tragedy, surviving students and other passengers, and family members of the missing, along with civilian divers, volunteers, and Jindo fishermen who took part in the rescue.

“Even though these people are living with the kind of trauma that doesn‘t heal, attempts to hold a fact-finding investigation have led to monitoring, surveillance, and infringements of the freedom to assemble and demonstrate,” the team announced at an event held on July 15 at the Franciscan Education Center in central Seoul for the release of “Human Rights Investigation Report: A Record of the Sewol Tragedy in Human Rights.”

Among the rights the team said have been taken away were the “right to be rescued,” the “right to safe working conditions” on the rescue, the “right to access to information about the tragedy and the handling process,” the “freedom to assemble and demonstrate,” and the “right to recover, mourn, and remember.”

The 220-page-long report provides vivid first-person accounts of the psychological, physical, social, and economic distress victims have suffered from having their rights taken away.

The parents of the surviving students described their children’s pain as follows. “Some children survived by kicking loose the hands of friends who were grabbing their ankles underwater. Some children watched as friends whose hands they had been holding were swept away. [. . .] Seeing a friend in the Sewol bathroom, one child reached their hand in to bring them out, but the friend said they were too scared to leave. The child says that they think of that friend every time they go to the bathroom.”

“People we know assume we already got 3 or 4 billion won in compensation and ask why we keep demanding more. Those words feel like a nail through the heart,” said the parents of a teacher from Danwon High School who perished in the accident.

But it‘s not only the families of the dead and missing who are suffering.

“We saw tens if not hundreds of bodies. Just seeing one of those Adidas track suits that the students were wearing is enough to drive anyone crazy,” said a private-sector diver who participated in the rescue work and recovery of the bodies.

“We had to receive psychological treatment for a long time. We couldn’t get to sleep because of the light from the flares and the sound of the planes,” one fisherman at Jindo said. Another one said, “Every time I close my eyes, I have nightmares.”

“There were fewer survivors than victims, and among the survivors, there were fewer ordinary people than students. I even found myself wondering whether I had the right to mourn and commemorate the lost. I sometimes wish I would get run over by a car and be killed or injured and have to stay in the hospital,” said a truck driver who was rescued.

“When I asked about getting government help for student loans, I was shocked when the government worker said, ‘But you survived,’” another truck driver said.

“When the Sewol victims asked for their rights to healing and recovery, they were vilified as people looking for money. They were robbed of their rights to mourn and to remember and told that it was time for them to forget and to move on,” the report said.

“We confirmed that the government is not able to deal with a tragedy like this. The fact-finding study will be used as the basis for the April 16 Human Rights Declaration Movement, which is intended to guarantee public safety and survival,” said Park Jin, an activist at the Dasan Human Rights Center who took part in preparing the report.

By Kim Kyu-nam, staff reporter

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