A gay South Korean man has been awarded refugee status in Canada as South Korean conscripts, especially homosexual ones, are "highly likely to face abuses."
Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Dec 15, 2011:
Canada awarded a South Korean man refugee status after he objected to the mandatory military service in his home country for being a pacifist and a homosexual, a local human rights group said Thursday.
The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) granted the status in July 2009 to Kim Kyung-hwan, 31, saying the gay conscript is highly likely to face abuse and mistreatment back home, according to the Center for Military Human Rights in Korea, which brought the story to light two years after the fact.
In South Korea, all able-bodied South Korean young men are required by law to serve nearly two-year compulsory military service.
