Despite increased preventive efforts, tragic child abuse cases continue to occur, indicating the need to make more concerted and systematic efforts to tackle the problem.
The most recent high-profile case involved Shin Won-yeong, a 7-year-old boy in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, who died on Feb. 2 after three years of horrific abuse by his stepmother. The boy’s body was found buried on a hill in the city last weekend.
The tragedy began when the boy’s father brought home the stepmother, surnamed Kim, in 2013, who frequently beat and starved him.
One day in January this year, the stepmother poured chlorinated bleach on him as punishment for wetting his pants. On the eve of his death, she undressed him and poured cold water on him for getting excrement on his pants. She left him locked up naked in the bathroom. That night, the temperature fell to minus 12.6 degrees Celsius. The boy was found dead the next morning. Police said he died of starvation, hypothermia and hypodermal bleeding.
The main culprits in this tragic case are the boy’s cruel stepmother and his father, who did not bother to stop her from abusing his own son.
Yet the entire society is also responsible for the boy’s death. In 2013, the poor boy was briefly taken into care by a local child protection center. At the time a staff of the center detected signs of physical abuse and reported the case to police, but no follow-up action was taken.
Had the ill-fated boy’s neighbors paid a little bit more attention to him, he would not have been driven to death. As the African saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Of course, the primary responsibility for bringing up a child lies with the parents. But when parents abuse their children, it takes the whole community to raise them.
The continuing spate of gruesome child abuse cases strongly indicates the absence of an effective system to detect maltreatment early and respond to it immediately.
Last month, the government came up with a much-needed manual aimed at preventing child abuse. Won-yeong’s case has in fact proved this manual useful. One of its measures requires teachers to report to police when students are absent from school for an extended period of time or when children do not enroll in school in time. The tragic case was brought to the surface when his elementary school reported to police that the boy had not enrolled.
While the manual is useful, its scope is limited. For early detection of child abuse, it is necessary to build a local network of child protection centers, community service centers, schools, municipal organizations and police.
For this, the government needs to set up more child protection centers and staff them adequately by hiring more counselors. Police and municipalities also need to beef up manpower for early detection of maltreatment and immediate intervention.
