Prosecutors seek to deprive abusive father of parental rights

By Chung Ah-young

Prosecutors said Monday that they asked a court to terminate the parental rights of a father who allegedly abused his daughter for more than three years.

The prosecution has indicted the 32-year-old father and two accomplices ― his girlfriend and another friend ― on charges of child abuse and demanded the court strip him of his parental rights.

They allegedly confined the 11-year-old girl at home in Incheon and a motel in Seoul for three years and four months since 2012. They habitually beat the girl, breaking her ribs, and didn’t provide enough food for her.

Prosecutors said that he and his girlfriend habitually beat his daughter.

The abuse was brought to light after the girl escaped from home on Dec. 12. She tried to steal bread at a nearby supermarket but the owner caught her. Seeing that she was barefoot and wearing just shorts and a T-shirt, he called the police.

The father told police that he abused her because he doesn’t like her.

Early in the investigation, police found that they had been abusing her since moving to Incheon from Bucheon in 2013. But prosecutors discovered additional evidence that she has been mistreated since 2012.

“We confirmed that she had been abused even before 2013 when they lived in Seoul,” a prosecutor said.

Right after the incident in December, the Incheon District Court temporarily suspended the father’s parental rights and designated an official at a child protection center as her guardian.

The relevant law requires prosecutors to ask the court for termination of parental rights when parents’ abuse causes serious injuries to children or they habitually beat them for an extended period.

The law was enacted in 2014 following a case where a seven-year-old girl in Ulsan died after her stepmother beat her for about an hour in 2013.