Civilians who were living in South Korea during the Korean War (June 25, 1950 ~ July 27, 1953) and taken to the North against their will and detained in North Korea. Relatives of abductees can report the abduction case to the City Hall, County Office and District Office in the place of reporter's resident registration. For more information, please call the Committee (Tel. 1661-6250). The lists of abductees produced during the Korean War or after the War are the public records of past. Therefore, rectifying the error details is particularly difficult. Also, simple errors of the past lists are not a problem during the screening procedure. For those reasons, no errors of the past lists were amended so far. Even though you are confirmed as abductees by the National Committee on Investigating Abductions during Korean War, you are not automatically become a member of KWAFU. You should receive the application form to be the member of KWAFU by fax, mail, or visit and fill in the form and send it to KWAFU by fax, mail, or visit.

Thanks to the private information protection policy, the personal information of the reporter and the abductee is not shared with KWAFU. So, families of abductees should submit the application to KWAFU person by person. Members of KWAFU can make the historical records about the abduction cases by participating in KWAFU's interview with the abduction witnesses and various kinds of domestic and overseas activities. Also, you can make the arrangement of family registration for free. Every year, KWAFU also hold commemorative events for abductees and members can attend the events to cherish the memory of abductees. Through cooperation with international organizations, members can participate in identifying whereabouts and repatriation of abductees. Above all, members can share memories of abductees and share the pain of loss together.

The victimized families became even the target of surveillance as a result of the implicative system.

In September, 1951, while the Korean War was still going on, the Korean War Abductees' Family Association was formed to make vigorous rescue efforts. However, when the North Korean regime began sending young South Korean abductees back to South Korea after training them into armed agents in late 1950s, their families in the south became the targets of surveillance by the Korean government, resulting in many kinds of disadvantages in their daily life, which continued until early 1990s.

With KWAFU members becoming subject to government surveillance, continuation of its activities became difficult.

Disconnection of dialogue between South and North?

The extreme inter-Korean ideological confrontation resulting from the Korean War virtually blocked dialogue between the two while the North Korean regime never stopped denying abduction of South Korean civilians.

With the start of inter-Korean reconciliation mood in 2000, the existence of the Korean War abductees is fading away from people's memory.

South and North have held many meetings since Kim Dae-Jung regime in 2000 allegedly to bring inter-Korean reconciliation. Kim Dae-Jung regime confirmed the number of abductees to be only 480 and used the terminology "abductee" to describe only those abducted after cease of the Korean War, while ignoring the existence of those abducted during the Korean War.

Now, when North Korea is in dire need of economic aid, is the prime time to pressure the North Korean regime to provide information on the Korean War abductees' fate? and their return to home in South Korea in exchange for economic aid.

In and around 1997, about 3 million North Koreans died of hunger from severe food shortage. While North Korea needs South Korea's economic aid most, we should take this opportunity to provide assistance in exchange, at least, for information on the fate of the Korean War abductees.