Police neglect causes child abuse victim to lose eye

By Chyung Eun-ju

Two policemen who failed to investigate a child abuse report, leading to a five-year-old boy having an eye surgically removed, were punished on Monday.

Mokpo Police Station said a disciplinary hearing decided to reduce the officers’ salaries for a month, according to JoongAng Ilbo. The punishment is the least-severe penalty available.

The hearing also issued a reprimand to the officers’ superiors.

The case surfaced in July 2016 when the boy was hospitalized with a broken arm, caused by his mother’s boyfriend. The boy was later discharged.

The medical team reported their abuse suspicions to police, but they didn’t immediately investigate.

Police reportedly said they didn’t act because the Gwangju Child Protection Institution did not find evidence of abuse or consult doctors regarding the boy.

Three months after the boy’s discharge, he was hospitalized again. The injuries meant doctors had to remove one of his eyes.

Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency found that the eye removal was a result of Mokpo police’s poor initial response.

On July 27, the Gwangju District Court convicted the mother’s boyfriend of grievous bodily harm and sentenced him 18 years’ jail. The mother was sentenced to six years for child neglect.

“Measures to identify child abuse in the early stages are urgent,” a protection institution official said. “The rate of detecting child victims in Korea is 0.5 to 0.7 percent while it is 9.4 percent in the United States.”

Nearly 80 percent of child abusers in Korea are parents, while 9 percent of victimized children report to police, the institution said.