By Chung Ah-young
The recent disappearance of a child in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, has again shown the loopholes of the social safety system in protecting children from domestic violence.
A seven-year-old, surnamed Shin, reportedly went missing on Feb. 20 after his stepmother, surnamed Kim, allegedly abused and abandoned him in the street, according to police.
Police are searching coastal areas near his home as surveillance camera footage showed the boy heading there with his stepmother.
Kim and the boy's father were arrested for violating the Child Welfare Law on Wednesday. Kim, who began living with Shin, his father and sister in June, 2013, was suspected of confining the children in the apartment's veranda and beating and starving them. The father was accused of neglecting the abused children.
The educational authorities and police had failed to protect the boy in advance, although the boy showed clear signs of frequent abuse over the last couple of years.
When he attended a public kindergarten from September to December last year, his teacher suspected mistreatment as he was often starved and contacted his parents several times. But his father claimed that it was a domestic matter.
After Shin was absent from kindergarten without notice for as long as a month, he was expelled ― such expulsion is allowed without any specific process because kindergartens are not subject to the regulation for compulsory education, according to the Pyeongtaek Office of Education.
Police said that before Shin attended kindergarten, a regional child protection center took care of him in 2013. Center staffers said that they noticed bruises on his body and tried to contact his parents but received no response from them.
In Shin's case, his abuse could have been detected earlier if the kindergarten or the center reported it to police, but they were not obliged to do so.
The case was known only after he failed to appear on the first day of school on March 2. The school notified the county office of his absence and reported it to police.
Recent countermeasures have been made following a series of child abuse incidents, but there still may be limitations to monitoring and protecting preschoolers who are not yet subject to compulsory education.
According to the measures, elementary and middle schools should request police investigation when a student is absent from school for more than two days with no apparent reason and the student's whereabouts are unknown. This rule is also applied to school-age children who are not enrolled in school for no clear reason.
The recent disappearance of a child in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, has again shown the loopholes of the social safety system in protecting children from domestic violence.
A seven-year-old, surnamed Shin, reportedly went missing on Feb. 20 after his stepmother, surnamed Kim, allegedly abused and abandoned him in the street, according to police.
Police are searching coastal areas near his home as surveillance camera footage showed the boy heading there with his stepmother.
Kim and the boy's father were arrested for violating the Child Welfare Law on Wednesday. Kim, who began living with Shin, his father and sister in June, 2013, was suspected of confining the children in the apartment's veranda and beating and starving them. The father was accused of neglecting the abused children.
The educational authorities and police had failed to protect the boy in advance, although the boy showed clear signs of frequent abuse over the last couple of years.
When he attended a public kindergarten from September to December last year, his teacher suspected mistreatment as he was often starved and contacted his parents several times. But his father claimed that it was a domestic matter.
After Shin was absent from kindergarten without notice for as long as a month, he was expelled ― such expulsion is allowed without any specific process because kindergartens are not subject to the regulation for compulsory education, according to the Pyeongtaek Office of Education.
Police said that before Shin attended kindergarten, a regional child protection center took care of him in 2013. Center staffers said that they noticed bruises on his body and tried to contact his parents but received no response from them.
In Shin's case, his abuse could have been detected earlier if the kindergarten or the center reported it to police, but they were not obliged to do so.
The case was known only after he failed to appear on the first day of school on March 2. The school notified the county office of his absence and reported it to police.
Recent countermeasures have been made following a series of child abuse incidents, but there still may be limitations to monitoring and protecting preschoolers who are not yet subject to compulsory education.
According to the measures, elementary and middle schools should request police investigation when a student is absent from school for more than two days with no apparent reason and the student's whereabouts are unknown. This rule is also applied to school-age children who are not enrolled in school for no clear reason.
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