The government will prioritize removing children from alleged abusers after repeat reports while expanding disability-focused shelters and agency coordination.
First Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Hyun Soo-yeob, center, apologizes over the death of a child in an abuse case in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, before announcing supplementary measures to prevent and respond to child abuse at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Sept. 2.YONHAP
Korea is overhauling its child abuse response, prioritizing immediate separation of children from alleged abusers when two or more abuse reports are filed within a year.
The new measures, announced Wednesday, also expand specialized shelters for abused children with disabilities and tighten information-sharing between local governments, police and schools.
"Children's situations all differ, so it's not possible to apply immediate separation uniformly. But we will revise the manual so that immediate separation is carried out more actively," First Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Hyun Soo-yeob said.
The measures follow last month's suspected child abuse death of an 11-year-old at a church in Cheonan, South Chungcheong. The child, who died after showing symptoms of high fever and exhaustion, was found with marks suggesting restraint, and the child's maternal grandmother and a church pastor have since been detained on charges of causing death through child abuse.
In that case, the child was not separated from her abusers in time despite repeated abuse reports. The case also exposed a shortage of protective facilities for children with intellectual disabilities — the victim had an intellectual disability — along with failures by education authorities to detect the risk she was in.
The government's first step is to strengthen on-site judgment around separation and protection. Under current rules, local governments can offer temporary protection and police can take emergency measures when there's concern about repeat abuse, but children who aren't separated remain exposed to continued risk in the meantime.
To address this, detailed report information on child abuse cases, previously handled solely by police, will now be shared quickly with local governments, and response plans will be worked out jointly on-site during joint response visits. When the risk of repeat abuse is high, such as when two or more reports are filed within a year, temporary protection and emergency measures will be given top priority for consideration.
Protective infrastructure for abused children with disabilities will also expand. The plan is to remodel portions of existing shelters for abused children into shelters specialized for children with disabilities and infants and toddlers, creating 18 such facilities by next year. These specialized shelters will have a lower child-to-staff ratio than standard shelters and will include customized facilities such as safety mats.
The grandmother of an 11-year-old who died after allegedly being abused while living at a church in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, enters the Cheonan branch of the Daejeon District Court for a pretrial detention hearing on Aug. 11. [YONHAP]YONHAP
Information-sharing between agencies will also expand. Current law already allows local governments and education offices to share information on child abuse, and information on children with prolonged absences is already being shared. But abuse history and information on exemptions or deferrals from compulsory schooling haven't always reached the right people in time, making it hard to monitor children at risk.
Going forward, education offices will check the abuse history of children exempted from or granted deferral of compulsory schooling who are considered at risk, using information obtained through local governments. Children flagged as high-risk and requiring close investigation will be subject to joint inspections by police, local governments and child protection agencies twice a year. The government also plans to upgrade its social security and education information systems to speed up the sharing of abuse histories.
Guidelines will also change so that joint visits by local governments, police and child protection agencies continue even when an abuser refuses case management. And local governments will notify guardians that a victimized child's allowance payments or the account it's paid into could be changed if repeat abuse occurs.
Even so, some are still calling for a stronger prevention system and tougher punishment for repeat offenders. "Punishing perpetrators is something we've thought a lot about. This round of measures focuses less on strengthening judicial punishment and more on quickly protecting victimized children and separating them from the danger their abusers pose," Yang Jin-hyeok, head of the health ministry's child abuse response division, said.
Separately, as part of an effort to identify children at risk, the government is conducting a full survey of roughly 60,000 children age 6 and under who have not received infant health checkups or essential vaccinations. A first-round survey covering 30,000 children was completed in July, and a second round covering the remaining 30,000 is now underway. The first round connected 8,807 children to welfare services, led to four abuse reports and referred 199 cases to police for investigation. The second round is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
