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A middle-aged black man, wearing a military uniform and carrying a black backpack, stepped inside Itaewon Station shortly after midnight last month. The temperature outside was minus 4 de- grees Celsius. The man headed straight to his usual place in a corner of the station and removed a blanket from his bag. When questioned, the man said his name was “Small A” but refused to say anything more. Local residents said they’ve seen him throughout the neighborhood since last September. “Recently, I saw him picking up some junk off the street,” said Lee Jae-suk, the 55-year-old owner of an Itaewon clothing store. Shin Hee-ung, deputy head of Itaewon Station, said Small A spends more and more time inside the station as the weather gets colder. Korea’s homeless population now includes for- eigners. Last May, an 83-year-old Dutch man was dis- covered by the police in front of the clock tow- er of Seoul Station. He claimed he was a Korean War veteran and displayed symptoms of mental illness. The police sent him to a facility in Daegu last July, but he returned to Seoul Station only a few days later, where he started sleeping. More re- cently, his health deteriorated and he later came to Hope Medical Center, which is run by the Seoul Red Cross Hospital for immigrants and low-in- come patients. In March 2013, the Injung Welfare Center in Yongsan, Seoul, was visited by a German man who asked for some food. After spending a few days at the center, the 53-year-old left to stay on the streets. Police and the center tried to locate him but couldn’t. Foreigners who find themselves homeless in Korea cannot go to government-run shelters be- cause there are no welfare regulations governing them. They are for Koreans only. There are only eight temporary shelters around the country that accept foreigners, and they can only stay in them for a maximum of 20 days. According to the Support Center for the Home- less, a temporary facility for homeless foreigners run by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, it provided counseling to eight people from Janu- ary through September of last year. Currently, 10 foreigners are living at the center. Last year, the center had no visitors. The center said that the nationalities of the homeless were varied and included people from the United States, Canada and Russia. “As of now, about 60 homeless people from various countries are staying at four temporary shelters around the city,” said Yeo Jae-hun, head of the center. “I believe there are more on the streets of Seoul.” Of the 60, 10 are currently at the center, while another 10 are at the Seoul Migrant Workers Center. The Global Village of Love-Sharing, a pri- vate charity, is housing 40. Another 29 hom eless foreigners are waiting to enter the Multicultural Family Support Center in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. Their counseling reports showed that 13 came to Korea for language schools but became home- less due to economic difficulties. Five said they became homeless due to domestic disputes, three said they became homeless after their vi- sas expired and two claim to be refugees. “When government-run homeless shelters take in Koreans, they receive government subsidies, but there is no money earmarked for foreigners,” said Kim Hae-sung, director of the Global Village of Love-Sharing. An official from the Ministry of Health and Wel- fare admitted that foreigners were excluded from standard homeless shelters. “We have enough trouble supporting the Koreans,” he said. “It is hard to pay attention to the foreigners.” The Justice Ministry admitted homeless for- eigners are a technical headache. “When they are visitors with valid visas, we can- not send them back home because they didn’t violate the Immigration Control Act,” said an offi- cial from the ministry. “If we do nothing about homeless foreigners now, they can grow into a new social problem,” said Kim Young-ran, professor of social psychol- ogy at the Sookmyung Women’s University. “We need to create a system to protect them at the existing welfare centers for the homeless.” Parents, especially cruel stepmothers, whose abuse led to the death of children have received heavy punishments in recent rulings. The Seoul High Court handed down a 10-year prison term in December to a 51-year-old woman whose years of abuse caused the death of her step- daughter. The woman, whose last name surnamed Yang, married her husband in 2008 and raised his two children from a previous marriage. She abused the stepdaughter and stepson from the start by beating them up, according to the prosecution. When she was under the influence of alcohol, she forced the children to eat massive amounts of steamed rice. After the 10-year-old stepdaughter was caught trying to surreptitiously throw away the rice, Yang began punishing her by mixing large amounts of salt into her meals. Starting in July 2012, Yang mixed three table- spoons of salt in the stepdaughter’s bowl of rice, two to three times a week. When the child threw up, she was forced to eat her own vomit. Yang also forced the stepdaughter to eat her own ex- crement. After a month of that treatment, the girl died of sodium poisoning. Both parents were prosecut- ed in December 2012. During her trial, Yang insisted she added the salt to correct the stepdaughter’s eating habits. She claimed her stepson’s testimonies about her abuses were coached by adults. The court rejected her arguments. “After the sister died, the elder brother went to live with his grandparents and gave consistent testimony about the abuses,” the court said. “And his stories are so explicit that no one could coach him with such stories unless they actually expe- rienced such abuse.” The court said it decided on a 10-year prison term because Yang did not show remorse during the trial although she had inflicted extreme pain on her stepdaughter for three years. The court, however, did not convict Yang of manslaughter because the correlation between the abuse and the death was not fully proven. The court acquitted the father, saying the children did not inform him of the abuses, so he could not be convicted of negligence. Meanwhile, a co uple who killed their son by beating him and locking him out of their apart- ment on a veranda were also convicted last month. The Seoul Western District Court convicted a 33-year-old woman surnamed Kwon and her 35-year-old husband, Na, for manslaughter and abuse. The woman was ordered to serve eight years in prison for the death of her stepson while the father was ordered to serve a five-year prison term. “Kwon decided to raise the child not because she loved him, but to prevent Na from meeting his ex- wife,” the court said. The court said she beat up the 8-year-old son and made him stay on the balcony of their home from morning until evening. He died from the beatings. “All children have the right to live happily and safely at home and to be protected from abuse and violence,” the court said. ABUsiVE sTEPMoTHERs HANDED BiG JAil TERMs FoREiGN HoBos TAKE To KoREAN sTREETs 23