It is a politically significant term with regard to South Korea–Vietnam relations and carries a heavy social stigma due to the fact that wartime sexual violence was endemic in Vietnam when these people were conceived.
A 2010 article in the academic journal Pacific Affairs followed the phrase "Lai Daihan" with the following in parentheses: "(the) children of South Korean fathers and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War".
[10] There were estimated to be 800 mothers of Lai Dai Han conceived due to rape who were still alive in 2015, from a petition calling for an apology from the Korean government.
The article also noted that "Historians agree that Korean troops fathered a large number of mixed Korean-Vietnamese children called Lai Dai Han.
The article also reported quotes from the interviews of ten elderly Vietnamese women who said to be victims of sexual assaults perpetrated by the South Korean military during the Vietnam War in Bình Định Province.
[further explanation needed] According to the article, the VVAK denied Ku's research of the South Korean military's conduct during the Vietnam War by saying that "all" of it had been "falsehoods and forgeries".
[14] Stephen Epstein, Director of the Asian Studies Programme at the Victoria University of Wellington, said that "Korea's legacy in Vietnam encompasses feelings of guilt, especially in a very concrete manifestation: thousands of children of mixed Korean-Vietnamese descent, the Lai Dai Han, a significant proportion of whom were abandoned by their fathers.
"[16] After the war, under communism The Lai Dai Han's mother were accused of being collaborators with enemy countries, and were confiscated, ideologically educated, and imprisoned.
[25] In June 2018 the Mother and Child by British artist Rebecca Hawkins[26] was unveiled in Church House, Westminster[27] and is sited in St James's Square[28] to stand and speak for the women and their children of the Lai Dai Han, and all victims of sexual violence in conflict around the world.
Coleman said, "What happened to these women, so many of whom lost their innocence at the hands of South Korean soldiers, is one of the great untold tragedies of the Vietnam War".
[38][39] A June 19, 2020, article in The Independent said that "the government of South Korea has never recognized or investigated the allegations of sexual violence made by the Lai Dai Han".
[40] A 2016 article in Daily Kos said that several Asian-American groups have asked California's Instructional Quality Commission to include what South Korea's military did during the Vietnam War into school textbooks, but it said that handling the issue of "sexual violence" would be a "delicate task".
[42] In a Japanese magazine article by a Tokyo Broadcasting System writer Noriyuki Yamaguchi alleged that comfort women facilities were set up and operated by Korean forces during the war.
The article said that in July 2014, Yamaguchi found a letter to Korean General Chae Myung-shin from the US military command in Saigon that appeared to have been written sometime from January 1969 to April 1969 .
[44] A September 1, 2017, article on Justice for Lai Dai Han's website said, "In an audacious display of dishonesty and hypocrisy, Seoul is always quick to highlight the suffering of its own people during past conflicts, but develops a severe case of national amnesia when facing its own crimes in Vietnam.
"[45] Another article posted on September 11, 2017, on the website mentions that although the Lai Dai Han "were the product of war crimes of the South Korean troops, they do not have compensation and they never received a formal official apology".