▲ Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik (left), Minister Kim Sung-hwan (right)


Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs wearing mulmangcho badges

Chosun Daily
Oct. 21, 2011


A light-blue flower badge was seen on the left collar of Prime Minster Kim Hwang-sik’s suit as he attended the plenary session of the National Assembly on the 20th for the government interpellation.

The same badge was on the suit of Kim Sung-hwan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at a briefing of domestic and foreign reporters. Minister Kim wore the same badge to a dinner held in a hotel in Seoul on the same day to celebrate the establishment of the second East Asia Vision Group.

The Korean War Abductees’ Family Union (KWAFU) began to make these badges last year and has been distributing them ever since. The badge resembles the flower mulmangcho, or “forget-me-not.” It is worn to commemorate those abducted by the North as part of efforts to find their fate and repatriate their remains.

Park Seon-yeong (Liberty Forward Party), member of the National Assembly, gave this badge to Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and other politicians. She gave these badges to State Council members whom she met at the National Assembly on the 19th.

She said, “When Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba visit Korea, they wear a blue ribbon badge to show their support for saving Japanese abductees.” She added, “Since Korea faces more serious challenges, including a greater number of abductees and the human rights of North Korean defectors, I wish more people in the government would wear this mulmangcho badge.”

Minister Kim said that, by seeing the badge on his suit every day, he will be reminded to think about solutions to human rights issues, including abductees and defectors.