The formation of policy on Hansen’s disease in Korea, and the history of patients’ self-expression

Abstract

ABSTRACT Previous studies of Hansen’s disease policy in Korea and the lives of patients with the disease have mainly focused on the history of suffering, dealing with the double discrimination the patients suffered in the colony under Japanese colonial rule. As such, there has been a lack of studies on how the voices of leprosy patients in Korea have engaged in society. The fact that leprosy patients have long been the victims of discrimination and exclusion remains unchanged. But they have struggled for survival by internalizing the norms of socially constructed elimination, even before the policy of Japanese imperialists on Hansen’s disease was launched. In the modern era, Hansen’s disease patients cooperated more actively with influential non-patients and campaigned through various media for policies that would support their survival and the establishment of facilities. These demands were not fulfilled during the Japanese occupation of Korea, because the Japanese rulers turned it into a means to justify their colonial administration. Only after liberation from Japan was the framework of the policy on Hansen’s disease established in Korea. Today, Hansen’s disease policy is shifting from disease control to a cultural project. This study explores the history of self-expression of patients with Hansen’s disease in Korea through an examination of the activities of the patients before the modern era, the activities of patient organizations during the Japanese colonial rule of Korea, and Korea’s policy on the disease after independence from Japan.