What changed
A Seoul court sentenced Kim, the director of South Korea’s state-subsidised Saekdongwon care home, to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting residents. The court found the testimony of three residents credible, convicted Kim of raping two of them and found him guilty of a lesser sexual-violence charge involving the third; he denies the allegations and is appealing.
Why it matters
This was not abuse in a place residents could simply leave. Seo Mi-hyeon lived at Saekdongwon for almost 10 years after arriving in 2016, and said Kim visited her at night to rape her. Some residents were made to call him “Dad”, a detail the court treated as evidence of the power imbalance between the director and people in his care.
Seo disclosed the abuse only after a head injury in February 2025, when she was told she would not have to return. Her mother had sought CCTV footage after the facility took Seo to hospital, but the home refused to release it. That sequence matters: the case came to light when a route out of the institution finally opened.
The court’s treatment of the third victim also exposes a difficult legal boundary. It rejected the rape charge because prosecutors could not establish conclusive evidence of force or threats that made her unable to resist, while still finding Kim guilty of sexual violence. Disability-rights and civic groups have criticised that reasoning, arguing that the ability to resist should not be the measure of whether an assault occurred.
Saekdongwon still houses about 33 residents and has been asked to close. The immediate question is not only what happens to Kim’s appeal, but where those residents go and whether they receive care that gives them a genuine way to report harm.
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