BUSAN: Even now, more than 30 years later, Choi Seung-woo weeps when he describes the five years of slave labour and frequent rape that he endured as a child. Choi was one of thousands sent to Brothers Home, an institution for so-called vagrants, as a way to clear city streets in preparation for the country's first Olympics. An AP investigation shows abuse at Brothers was much more vicious and widespread than previously realised, and that a cover-up was orchestrated at the highest levels of government.

File - Choi Seung-woo (left) and Lee Chae-sik talk as they stand in front of an apartment complex at the former location of the Brothers Home, a mountainside institution where some of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korean history took place, in Busan, South Korea, on January 28, 2016. Photo: Ahn Young-joon/AP