Jin Young-hae is a made-up name. It’s not his story. A few days ago, this South Korean mother explained to the BBC on condition of anonymity what prompted her to don a blue jumpsuit – completely voluntarily – and spend hours locked up in a tiny, stark cell not much bigger than a cell. I had a locker and I didn’t have my company, cell phone or laptop in it. Alone with his thoughts. The only connection to the outside of his peculiar prison was a small hole in the door through which food was occasionally distributed.

It may sound strange, but there is a word that explains this: Hikikomori.

Purpose: Isolate yourself from the world. Ms. Jin’s choice may seem extravagant, but she is not the only person in South Korea to make a similar decision. The BBC spoke to other prisoners and volunteer prisoners. Besides requiring anonymity, they all share two key features. First, they are parents of young people in their teens to thirties.

Second, they decided to participate in a special program that would keep them in isolation cells for a short time. And this last remark can be understood in its most literal sense. Jin and the other participants stay in small rooms where they cannot even take a mobile phone with them.

But why? Understand. Jin or Park Han-sil, one of the pseudonyms used by the BBC to report a real case, are mothers of young South Koreans who also share another characteristic: they have isolated themselves from the world. Jin is the mother of a 24-year-old who lives in her room, neglecting her hygiene and food. Park has a slightly older son, 26, who decided to cut off all contact with society seven years ago. He now barely leaves his room and refuses to take the medication prescribed by doctors.

By voluntarily restricting themselves, Ms. Jin or Ms. Park try to understand their children better, putting themselves in their shoes to an extreme extent and, above all, seeking means to communicate better with them. “I wondered what I did wrong… it was very painful,” Jin, 50, admits. Now, and after her time in solitary confinement, she claims to have gained “some clarity.” Park also admits that isolation helped her understand her son’s feelings. “I realized it was important to accept your life without forcing you into a certain mold.”

“The experience of incarceration”Neither Park nor Jin decided to lock themselves up in their homes for a day. Theirs were planned experiences and isolation, carried out in the rooms of the Happiness Factory. prisoners They come to experience “imprisonment” in their bodies.

To do this, they may wear uniforms, leave their phones and laptops behind, and retreat unaccompanied to bare-walled cells. The BBC revealed that there were other parents who had taken part in the 13-week special training program since April, funded by organizations such as the Korean Youth Foundation or the Blue Whale Rescue Centre.

The program has a clear and complex goal: to show these fathers and mothers how to communicate better with their children. To do so, it involves a peculiar experience, a three-day period in which participants spend time in rooms that mimic an isolation cell in Gangwon province.

Keyword: hikikomori. Jin and Park’s mothers hikikomoriA term coined decades ago in Japan to describe young people who, at a certain point in their lives, decide to isolate themselves almost completely, cutting off communication with the world beyond their home or room.

This phenomenon is not new, but it is serious. At least according to the estimates used by the authorities. Recently, the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare conducted a survey among 15,000 young people between the ages of 19 and 34, and found that more than 5% of them were living in isolation. If these figures were extrapolated to the country as a whole, it would reveal that there are hundreds of thousands of people in a similar situation in South Korea: just over half a million (540,000).

Understanding isolationPark admits that the program allows parents of these young people to better understand the reason for the quarantine, such as reading notes written by others hikikomori It helped him understand his own son’s silence. The South Korean Government also has studies that help get a clear idea of ​​the phenomenon of isolation among young people without having to go through an experience like the Happiness Factory.

A study conducted by the South Korean Ministry of Health found that 24.1% of young people aged 19-34 who decided to disconnect from the world did so due to difficulties in finding a job, 23.5% did so due to problems with relationships, and 24.8% did so due to problems with relationships. shows what he did. due to family or health problems. The backdrop is the competitive South Korean society, where parents take their children to academies from a very young age, ensuring they can get into the most prestigious universities in the country. South Korea also stands out for its marathon training days.

Worry beyond home. Incoming Hikikomori It is a serious enough phenomenon to cause concern beyond families. In 2023, the Government launched a campaign to encourage lonely young people to leave home and “reintegrate into society”, for which it did not hesitate to offer payments of 450 euros for young people up to the age of 24. At that time, it was rumored that hundreds of thousands of people would live in isolation in the country.

Advantages of taking a break. Their mothers and fathers hikikomori They are not the only ones seeking voluntary isolation in South Korea. There are those in the country who decide to limit themselves to their choices, even paying hundreds of euros for the experience to take a break from their busy routine.

This was reported by the CBC network in 2018, which reported on the case of Suk-won Kang, a 57-year-old engineer from Seoul who paid $578 to spend seven days at Prison Inside Me, a centre in Hongcheon. During his strange holiday, Kang wore a uniform and was kept alone in a five-square-metre cell. He was not completely alone. There were 13 other similar guests in the facility.

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