[Speech]Jung-soon Han :The second generation of Korean A-bomb victim

The second generation of Korean A-bomb victim: 

Jung-soon Han

Remarks at the 10th NPT Review conference



My name is Han Jungsoon, a Korean second-generation victim of the atomic bombs that occurred in Hiroshima. My parents and fourteen other family members were exposed to the nuclear radiation on August 6 in 1945.


My mother, who got then pregnant and exposed to the radiation, lost her baby in a year for the unknown disease. Since my mother returned to Korea after the Korea’s independence from Japan, she gave births to my five siblings. I am the fifth of the six children.


I have had severe pains on my legs since I was fifteen years old. The pains had become worse and worse as I grew up, which led me to be unable to walk well.


I gave a birth to my son one year after my marriage. But he got diagnosed with the cerebral palsy. I have been deeply sad and cried to death due to his serious health conditions throughout his life.


The worsened pains on my legs did not allow me to even stand up in my late twenties. Since my two arms had worked as my legs, I had to drag my butt, which made my palms constantly hurt and bleed. I was not able to go out. But under my rough economic condition, I could not get any treatments for the rotten thighs caused by melt-down joints. There was no other way except getting the artificial joint surgery, which cost me a lot.


However, the family support eventually allowed me to have surgeries, but the pain got worse soon after the surgeries. I had six times of surgeries because the artificial joints have been quickly worn out. The pain has never ended.


All of my siblings have suffered from the side effects caused by my mother’s exposure to the radiation in Hiroshima. They have struggled with cerebral infraction, shoulder joint pains, myocardial infraction, agina, and collapsed gums.


Yet, we have gotten neither any U.S. government redress compensation, nor recognized as the atomic bomb victims. The pains that radiation victims and descendants have had to endure are indeed indescribable.


Most critically, the harmful side effects of the exposure to the radiation could be permanent and inherited to the next generations. But the US and Japan did not admit the inherited harmful effects and they did not provide any apologies and compensations for what they did during the war.


The nuclear weapon should never be used by and to the humanity. And it should be completely eliminated because it is an enemy of the humanity. I sincerely ask for the US to show a deep regret and offer an apology and compensation. I hope the warning for the nuclear weapon not to be used to the humanity again should be widely shared across the world.