Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Father receives suspended prison sentence for child neglect
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By Kwon Mee-yoo
By Kwon Mee-yoo
An appellate court has upheld a lower court decision that gave a 76-year-old man a suspended prison sentence on charges of raising five children in an unclean, moldy house and keeping one son from attending elementary school.
The appellate department of the Chuncheon District Court in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, said it upheld the lower court ruling that sentenced the man to six months in jail suspended for two years on charges of child abuse and neglect in violation of the Child Welfare Act. He was also ordered to attend 40 hours of education on child abuse prevention.
According to the court, the man married a woman of Cambodian nationality in 2008 and has five sons from two to 10 years old.
He is accused of allowing one son not to go to elementary school from Nov. 14, 2017 to May 23, 2018, depriving the son's right to education. According to the court, he told his son he wouldn't attend school until he reached middle school age.
The father claimed that his son didn't want to go to school at first and his truancy was unintentional, but the court said the father, as a guardian with parental rights, should have talked with his child to find the reason and convince him to go to school, instead of letting him stay home from school.
"The father blamed the school for his son's truancy and turned down the request from the local community center to send his son to school citing his own educational philosophy. He violated the victim's right to be educated," the court said.
He is also accused of raising his children in an unsanitary environment. He did not clean his house from September 2016 to May 2018, resulting in a moldy and foul-smelling bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
The father did not provide his children with recommended vaccinations and the children suffered from dental diseases as he did not teach them to brush their teeth, claiming toothpaste was harmful to their health.
The court said the father denied support and advice from related agencies such as a community center that contacted him about his son returning to school and offered to clean his home.
The court rejected the father's appeal, saying that the harm would have been greater and longer-lasting if state agencies had not intervened when they did.