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Kim Tae-hoon
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Seven of the boys on a recent field trip
The coronavirus crisis means millions of parents around the world are grappling with the challenge of home-schooling. But one man in Seoul has a particularly tough task.
Kim Tae-hoon, 45, homes 10 North Korean boys who defected from the repressive state without their parents. The youngest is just 10 years old, the oldest 22.
Usually they would be at school, or university – in the case of 22-year-old Gun-seong – but last month South Korean students began online lessons instead.
On the first morning of remote schooling, Kim, talking to the BBC via video link, shepherds the boys to a large table on the second floor, where the wifi is at its strongest.
“I think you’d better put your earphones on because the sounds might get all mixed up during the morning assembly,” he tells them.
As might be expected, there are teething problems. Grappling with unfamiliar online systems via tech devices rented from the local education office is one of them.
The log-ins of two of the boys who are in the same grade have been mixed up, and 15-year-old Geum-seong, who only defected from North Korean a year ago, understandably needs more help than the others. He’s not used to submitting assignments online.
Meanwhile, Jun-seong, the youngest of the family, is scolded for watching YouTube on his tablet.
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Kim Tae-hoon
But just two days later, Kim says the boys have settled into their new routine under his watchful eye.
Eight of Kim’s charges defected without adults, either alone or with siblings, and have no other family ties in the South. There are various reasons for just children leaving North Korea, including living only with grandparents too elderly to accompany them, or having parents who live apart and cannot organise for the whole family to make the difficult journey.
“They send their child to South Korea to find a better life. If the kids are too young, they even escape from the North on the broker’s back,” Kim explains.
According to the Ministry of Unification, there were 33,658 North Korean defectors in the South as of March 2020, of which around 15% were 19 years or under.
And as of 2017, the government reported it was aware of 96 children who had arrived in the South without their parents, according to media reports.
Kim never imagined that he would become the boys’ carer.
Fifteen years ago he was working in publishing. He spent his spare time volunteering for Hanawon, a government-run resettlement facility in Seoul where all North Korean defectors live for three months, taking a course to prepare them for integration into society in the South.
He met a young boy called Ha-ryong, who had recently left the centre with his mother. She had managed to get a job but it was a long way from home and she had to leave her son home alone.
Ha-ryong, 10 years old at the time, asked Kim to be his babysitter, a role which he ended up taking on permanently.
Kim’s parents completely disapproved and cut all ties with him for several years.
He went on to take in more North Korean children, one by one. The boy who has lived with him the longest of those still with him is Cheol-gwang. He arrived in the South on Christmas Eve 2012 aged just 11 years old. He and his sister had initially tried to escape with their mother but were caught by guards and detained. He was released alone, and his sister was freed three months later. But his mum never reappeared.
Eventually Cheol-gwang and his sister succeeded in escaping to the South alone.