The 2011 Korean film “Silenced” is based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where deaf children were the victims of repeated physical and sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.
A newly appointed teacher at the school alerted human rights groups in 2005, and was subsequently fired from his job. This teacher was the first to come forward about the abuse he’d witnessed, as the school specifically sought out poorer teachers who would be completely dependent on the school for their financial security and therefore less likely to turn against the administration.
Nine children eventually came forward, but more victims were believed to have concealed additional crimes in fear of repercussions or because of trauma. Children who were orphans or who had disabled parents were targeted specifically, and children who tried to come forward were sent back to school and disciplined by the faculty.
During the trial, the perpetrators received support from the local community, especially from the police and churches in the community. Of the six perpetrators, four received prison sentences, while the other two were freed immediately because the statute of limitations for their crimes had expired. Among those jailed, two were released after less than a year in jail. Four of the six teachers were reinstated in the school.
The film sparked public outrage after its 2011 release, which eventually resulted in a reopening of investigations into the incidents. The school was shut down, and several of the teachers pleaded guilty to sexual molestation charges, including the former principal, who was sentenced to twelve years in prison. The demand for legislative reform eventually reached its way to the National Assembly of South Korea, where a bill (named after the film) was unanimously passed in October 2011 to abolish the statute of limitations for all sex crimes against minors and the disabled.
The film’s ending scene is a protest that occurred following the suicide of a thirteen-year-old victim after the trial in 2005. As the crowd of human rights advocates and deaf people face brutality from the riot police, the fired teacher who initially came forward (who, along with a human rights activist, helped the victims through the trial process) repeats the name of the victim who’d committed suicide, saying “he cannot hear or speak.”
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