SOCIAL- Child maltreatment 승정.docx
[Social]
Title: How much do you
know about ‘Child Maltreatment’ in South Korea?
Jeon Seung-jeong Social Editor, tmdwjd4984@mju.ac.kr
How much
do you know about ‘Child abuse problems’ of South
Korea? There are thousands of social problems happening every day in South
Korea. People are too busy living their lives so that they do not give lots of
concerns on each problem. However, we should not be acting like a bystander on
this child issue because we, adults would be the only hope and saver to those
who suffered or suffering child abuse according to South Korea`s weak legal
system.
About
a movie ‘My First Client’
Last May, a movie named ‘My First Client’ had
released in South Korea. Although this movie did not enjoy box-office success, People paid attentions a lot to this
movie because the movie`s story was made based on a true story which known as
‘Chilgok child abuse case’.
In
2013, a woman from Chilgok Province, desperately abused her stepdaughter and
forced the girl’s sister to confess to murder, which caused huge aftermath
across the country, sparking a nationwide debate that resulted in a special law
on child abuse of the following year. And the movie released 6 years later based
on Chilgok incident.
The
movie`s director dramatized a real story a little bit including comic elements.
This movie follows the story of lawyer Jeong-yeop on a quest to reveal the
truth behind a 10-year-old girl’s dubious confession to the murder of her younger
brother.
At
the press conference, movie director Jang said that he met the victim of the real
incident- the girl who was abused and forced to confess to a murder and told
the press that the victim girl was more cheerful than what he thought before and
she asked him “Please make a good movie”.
Regardless of the box-office score, this movie got
lots of favorable reviews by audience. It is fact that there were many
films about child abuse worldwide, but people have short memories so even they
enraged a lot by a specific event in the past, they will forget the event soon
and they will be angry at new case again and again and perhaps this movie was also
one of catalyst
made people remind of child abuse problem.
However, people started to aware of Korea`s
child abuse problem due to emerging movies.
Seriousness
of the child abuse
According
to the statistics from The Ministry
of Health-Welfare`s child care agencies as many as 218 children were
dead from 2001 to 2017. However, for the child abuse cases, lots of incidents
have been hided or disguised so it is estimated that there would be much
more abuse cases. at this very minute, people
all know that child abusing is still happening, yet the situation only
continues to worsen.
Fortunately, child abuse
reporting have been increasing from 19,000 cases 2015 to 34,000 cases
2017. However, South Korea`s child abuse rate (number of victims of child abuse
per 1000 people) is 2.64%, which found to be lower
than most of OECD member nations.
For
the child abuse cases, after-care and response are important a lot as much as
discovery of the case. So the problems of recidivism are actually
got worse. Also, the number of second abuses have been increasing more and
more.
If the degree of abusing were found to be minor
through the police investigation, the child should go back to what they used to
live quickly, even though the victim child
urgently separated from the abuser and remained in care giving center for some
period early in the situation. For these cases, child care agencies are doing ‘case managements’,
but there are only 62 agencies for case managements. And those who works for
ongoing care for child are treated not so good so case management is facing insufficient
work system problems.
There
are only about 63 child protection shelters in our country so for some victim child
undergoing bad maltreatment, they sent to ‘group home
for children’ urgently. But it appears that according to child group
home council`s latest survey results, more than 68% child found to be facing another
abuse while they are living in group home.
South
Korea`s child protection
institutions are suffering from low wages and poor working
environments. Especially for the social workers, their source of income belongs
to ‘fund for victims of criminals’ or lottery fund, not belongs to the Ministry of Health and Welfare`s budget.
It is the stickiest situation that social workers are working hard receiving only
minimum wage. And they work 365days under arduous shifts not even
receiving overtime pays.
Through
hundreds of reports, people can know the government`s protection about child
abuse problem is under fragile control.
What
adults must do