- Chun Ki-won sexually abused five children and adolescents at a boarding school
- The school was created by the pastor to give runaway children a place to stay.
- He was initially going to be sentenced to 13 years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to five.
A pedophile pastor in South Korea has been jailed for five years after sexually abusing runaway children at the boarding school he founded to protect them.
Chun Ki-won, 67, considered a national hero in the country for his work trafficking children out of North Korea, ran his boarding school in Seoul.
Ki-won created it especially to give runaway children a place to stay as part of the refugee smuggling mission he has run for the past 25 years: the Underground Railroad.
The pastor has made international headlines over the years, being known as the Asian Oskar Schindler.
Ki-won is said to have helped over 1,000 people escape from the North, many of whom were children, so he created his own school for them.
He was arrested in September.
Pedophile pastor Chun Ki-won sexually abused five young people between 2016 and 2023
The American newspaper focused on North Korea, North Korea Newsreported that the accusations began in August.
According to South Korean police, between 2016 and 2023, the pastor sexually abused six children and adolescents between the ages of 13 and 16, although one of the charges was eventually dropped.
He was expected to be sentenced to 13 years, but the sentence was reduced to just five after prosecutors recommended a shorter sentence.
It is said to be common in South Korea for children of defectors to attend boarding schools because their parents do not have the financial means to care for them at home.
There’s potentially a very good reason why Ki-won was able to get away with this for so long.
Some believe that due to the autocratic nature of North Korea, where strict rules are followed and free will seems a distant dream, and the few people sitting on top of the towers are in complete control, real society at the level of the secret route street for the outcasts. .
In a similar way to how in all dictatorships throughout history, large sectors of citizens have listened to their leader, but behind closed doors, they admired those who broke the rules much more.
This has led some to believe that these rule breakers can openly hide in the shadows and therefore get away with whatever they want, such as pedophilia.
Eric Foley of Martyrs Korea, a non-governmental organization that promotes freedom of religion in North Korea, told NK News: “Books, movies and social media tend to glorify the ‘lone rangers’ in Korea’s work.” of the North: guys who work in the shadows”. “Seemingly miraculous rescues can be accomplished single-handedly, but situations like this are a painful reminder that even the most important undercover work requires real relationships of accountability.”
Those who have sought to escape the tyrannical nation over the years have done so with the help of people like Ki-won, using underground tunnels in operations such as the Underground Railroad.