Is there anywhere that wasn't or isn't fucked up at some point in history?! Humans are shitty. Ancient humans were even worst (very boring, smelly and short life)
They had a lot of problems with child abuse. I mean, most countries had, but theirs was somewhat more prominent. One of the less psychotic countries though, I guess.
In total, between 1965 and 1973, 312,853 South Korean soldiers fought in Vietnam; Vietnam's Ministry of Culture and Communications in an unofficial investigation[6] estimated they killed 41,400 enemy fighters and 5,000 civilians.[7] After the Vietnam war, there were thousands of children of mixed Korean and Vietnamese descent, called Lai Dai Han, born of Korean workers or soldiers and local Vietnamese.[8] Reportedly, many resulted from widespread "My Lai-style massacres" that[9] involved the rape of Vietnamese Women by South Korean soldiers.[8] Various civil society groups continue to hope for a formal investigation and apology into these events.[10]
South Korean (ROK) soldiers were heavily involved in the US-Vietnam war and had a reputation for being effective but brutal. Maybe this is related to that?
Perhaps the DPRK wouldn't be as poor and reclusive if they hadn't had almost all the cities in the north bombed until there was nothing left by Americans. And South Korea's situation was really not that great either for a long time. It was led by brutal US installed leaders like Singman Rhee. The north was much better off by most metrics until later on.